On November 29th, China's application for "Traditional Chinese Tea Making Techniques and Related Customs" was approved at the 17th regular session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO held in Rabat, Morocco, and was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Among them, Zhao Liqiao's brick tea making skills were successfully selected along with 42 "Chinese traditional tea making skills and related customs" nationwide.
Zhao Liqiao brick tea making skills
The production technique of Zhao Liqiao brick tea evolved from the Ming Dynasty's "hat box tea" and was basically formed during the Qing Dynasty's Daoguang period. As the tea with the highest degree of compactness in the world, tea green brick tea has a high degree of compactness and is pressed into a brick shape, which is conducive to transportation and preservation. Wodui fermentation is the most difficult process in the production of Zhao Liqiao brick tea. After this process, the taste, aroma, and contents of the tea undergo significant changes. After boiling, it can help people obtain vitamins, reduce fat and greasiness, and is deeply loved by Mongolian herdsmen.
Multiple measures taken to assist in inheritance
Zhao Liqiao Tea Factory is the only unit that inherits and protects the production techniques of Zhao Liqiao brick tea, a national intangible cultural heritage. "Hubei Zhaoliqiao Tea Factory" and "Sichuan" brands are recognized as "Chinese time-honored brands", "Locomotive", "memorial archway" and "Juxingshun" brands are recognized as "Hubei time-honored brands", famous at home and abroad.
While strengthening the brand and developing the Daqing brick tea industry, tea factories should not forget to inherit, protect, and promote the production techniques of Zhao Liqiao brick tea.
One is to strengthen the team of inheritors and enhance the vitality of tea making techniques. Zhao Liqiao Tea Factory encourages inheritors of intangible cultural heritage at all levels to learn and pass on their skills, and to strengthen the team of inheritors. Currently, there is one representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage at the provincial level, four representative inheritors at the city level, and five representative inheritors at the county level. The intangible cultural heritage inheritance team has six generations, and the post-90s inheritance team has officially stepped onto the stage of craftsmanship.
The second is to focus on the construction of inheritance sites, with rich and diverse dissemination activities. In response to the "Intangible Cultural Heritage in Campus" activity, the tea factory's intangible cultural heritage inheritance team has used various forms such as oral lectures, on-site demonstrations, and videos to popularize the history, present, and future development of brick tea making skills for primary and secondary school students. So far, they have completed more than 50 campus lectures. The factory has set up a dedicated learning base - Zhao Liqiao Tea Factory Chuanzi Tea Museum, which uses nearly a thousand cultural relics and collections in the museum, combined with images and explanations from intangible cultural heritage inheritors, to showcase the development process of "Chuanzi" tea from the Qing Dynasty to more than a hundred years ago. Since its opening, it has received 613 batches of domestic and foreign visitors, with a total of over 10000 visitors.
The third is to rely on product innovation to add infinite vitality to the inheritance of skills. On the premise of inheriting traditional tea making techniques and ensuring authentic flavors, the inheritance team has developed more than 20 inheritance series products, including "Century Chuancheng", "Tea and the World", "Cave Tea Past and Present", and "Two in One Green Brick Tea", covering traditional brick and modern light green brick types. The first inheritance series product sold out immediately after its launch.
The fourth is to create promotional business cards and promote the "going global" of intangible cultural heritage projects. By upgrading and renovating the storefront signage, the "Chuan" sign has been inserted into the north and south of China. Frequently appearing and participating in major national, economic, trade, and cultural exchange activities, such as the 2018 and 2021 Hubei Global Promotion Activities organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the "Sheep come and tea go, good neighborly relations long" story, making the brick tea of the tea culture intangible cultural heritage homeland even more brilliant and dazzling.
The fifth is to build a high-level tea research platform to promote the development of tea making techniques through inheritance. Establishing a research institute for compressed tea not only inherits and protects the traditional Zhao Liqiao brick tea making process, but also continuously promotes the development of the traditional tea industry towards cleanliness, standardization, mechanization, and serialization. Following the profound roots of traditional tea making techniques, supplemented by modern science and technology and high-quality management, the intangible cultural heritage inheritance team has participated in the drafting and revision of 10 national standards, 2 local standards, and 14 group standards. Strategic cooperation agreements have been reached with over ten universities and research institutions to provide intellectual support for promoting innovative development of tea making techniques.
From the origin of the Wanli Tea Road in Zhaoliqiao Town, Hubei Province to the hinterland of the Eurasian continent, the tea making technique of Zhaoliqiao brick tea has crossed history and borders, and has become an important medium for China and the world to understand and interact with each other, and for Chinese civilization to exchange and learn from other civilizations in the world. It has become a common wealth of human civilization. Being listed as a representative work of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity is of great significance in promoting the prosperity and development of the green brick tea industry, deepening the understanding of tea culture, consolidating the cultural identity of the diverse Chinese nation, and strengthening cultural confidence.
Zhao Liqiao Tea Factory will continue to do a good job in the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage of Zhao Liqiao brick tea production skills from the perspective of promoting cultural confidence and self-improvement. We will tell the story of intangible cultural heritage of tea production skills in the new era, promote excellent tea culture and tea products to better go global, and give Hubei's historical famous tea new vitality, running from time to the future!
