Yunnan is the birthplace of tea, and Lincang is one of its sources. The cultivated ancient tea tree promoted by Secretary Wang grows in the Cha Wang natural village of Jinxiu Village, Xiaowan Town, Fengqing County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province. It is known as the “Jinxiu Tea King.” After enduring 3,200 years of wind and rain, the “Jinxiu Tea King” still stands tall, absorbing dew and drinking frost, with lush branches and leaves, full of vitality. The tree is 10.6 meters high, with a canopy spanning 11.5 meters north to south and 11.3 meters east to west. Its root diameter is 1.84 meters, and its circumference is 5.84 meters. With an age exceeding 3,200 years, it is the oldest and thickest cultivated ancient tea tree discovered in the world so far. In 2015, the “Jinxiu Tea King” was honored in the Shanghai Guinness World Records Museum, earning the title of “China’s Largest Ancient Tea Tree.”
The “Jinxiu Tea King” was discovered in the early 1980s and has since been examined by numerous domestic and international experts and scholars. This discovery has profound and irreplaceable significance for tracing the history of tea in China and worldwide, studying tea culture, and deepening tea science research. Since its discovery, local Party committees and governments have attached great importance to its protection, inheritance, and development. It has become a holy place in the hearts of many tea enthusiasts, attracting experts and scholars from within and outside the province, as well as tourists from all walks of life, to visit, explore its roots, pay homage, and experience health and wellness.
In recent years, with the growing reputation of the “Jinxiu Tea King,” the investment in its protection has increased, and tea merchants and enthusiasts continue to flock there. Consequently, Jinxiu Village, where it is located, has undergone tremendous changes, truly benefiting from the blessings of the “Tea King.”
On one hand, the emergence of the “Jinxiu Tea King” has gradually allowed people to enjoy the resource dividends brought by ancient tea. Descendants of the “Tea King” have taken root and thrived on this land, making Jinxiu Village a famous ancient tea hometown. Over 800 ancient tea trees with diameters of more than 50 centimeters around the “Jinxiu Tea King” are now protected. Along with the annual tea expos, black tea festivals, and other events, the prices of tea in Jinxiu Village and its surroundings have steadily risen.
Xiaowan Town continues to excel in the tea industry and vigorously develops the tea sector, taking the protection of ancient tea resources as its responsibility. They insist on ecological tea cultivation and scientific tea protection, increasing training efforts to control tea quality at its source. They educate and guide the public to practice protective picking, making it a consensus among tea farmers to nurture and harvest tea properly. As a result, each tea tree becomes a sustainable and developable green resource. The price of fresh leaves from ancient tea trees has risen from around 30 yuan per kilogram in the past to as high as 1,700 yuan per kilogram today. The price of finished products made from ancient tea trees has increased from about 200 yuan per kilogram to 2,400 yuan per kilogram today. On average, each ancient tea tree brings in over 8,000 yuan in fresh leaf income per year for farmers, with an annual total output value reaching over 7 million yuan. Indeed, the “green leaves” covering the mountains have truly turned into “red bills” in the pockets of tea farmers, making the tea industry a genuine wealth-building industry.
The “out-of-the-box” success of the “Jinxiu Tea King” has gradually allowed people to enjoy the economic benefits brought by the integration of tea and tourism, using tea as a medium, gathering friends through tea, enriching people through tea, and revitalizing through tea.
Jinxiu Village actively seeks various projects to improve infrastructure, establishing a tea king platform and constructing a visitor center. It successfully applied for the “Jinxiu Tea King” scenic area to be rated as a 3A-level scenic spot. Adopting the model of “Party branch + cooperative + enterprise,” the village Party General Branch established the Jinxiu Tea King Professional Cooperative, fully leveraging the positive role of the village-level collective economy in rural revitalization. It takes full responsibility for Jinxiu Village’s rural tourism affairs, inviting third-party professional management teams to participate in scenic area operations and management. Together, they established the mixed-ownership company Lincang Mingzu Scenic Area Management Co., Ltd., focusing on operational methods, cultural industries, event planning, product exhibitions and sales, and creative product development. Lincang Mingzu Scenic Area Management Co., Ltd. registered the “Zhongzhi Jinxiu” trademark for Jinxiu tea and launched the “Jinxiu Market” mini-program for online sales of tea and cultural and creative products. It has opened multiple new media platforms such as a public account, video account, and Douyin account, creating exclusive image packaging for Jinxiu tea products, allowing the Jinxiu tea industry to integrate deeply with the market and engage closely with new media. Jinxiu Village cooperates with external enterprises, combining strengths and complementing each other, achieving integrated development of “village-cooperative-enterprise,” strengthening the village-level collective economy while building a modern tea industry system that integrates tea production, tea tourism, and tea culture, pooling wisdom and vitality for the revitalization of Jinxiu Village.
Since 2024, Jinxiu Village has received a total of 27,000 visitors, generating 2.3 million yuan in sales of surrounding tea and agricultural specialty products.
The development of Jinxiu Village is just a reflection of the blessings bestowed by the “Tea King.” In recent years, Fengqing County has formed the Yunnan Black Tea Industry Alliance, promoting the industrialized development of the entire tea industry chain, continuously optimizing and strengthening the “Yunnan Black Tea” industry brand. Industries related to tea bases, tea processing, tea markets, tea culture, and tea tourism have flourished. Currently, the county has a tea garden area of 516,100 mu, and the alliance enterprises have established interest-linked relationships with 418 primary processing plants, accounting for 80.23% of the county’s total. The effectively controlled tea garden area reaches 440,000 mu, or 85.2% of the total tea garden area; linked to 281,500 tea farmers, or 86.6% of the county’s total tea farmers. In 2023, the county’s raw tea annual output was 44,600 tons, and the refined tea annual output was 31,200 tons, with a comprehensive annual output value of 7.774 billion yuan. Moreover, relying on the tea industry, Fengqing combines its advantages in ecological environment, historical culture, production and processing, and tourism culture, delving into the functional connotations of the tea industry. It vigorously extends the industrial chain centered on “tea,” carefully creating a tea-tourism integration base that integrates ecological tourism, rural tourism, and cultural tourism, further expanding the forms and contents of the tea industry linking farmers and promoting agriculture, paving a sustainable development path of “using tea to drive tourism, using tourism to invigorate tea, and enriching people through tea-tourism.”