20 years of restarting life

Chapter 3713 Integration of the Tea Market

Because of the sluggish sales and precipitous drop in price of Shancheng Maojian green tea, Feng Jianfei and Duan Fengqing have been trying to find a solution to this problem in the latter half of last year and the year before.

However, we live in a market economy now, and farmers buying pesticides such as seedling promoters and herbicides is a normal business practice, which cannot be stopped at the source.

In the process of application, each household in the deep mountains makes its own choices, especially the seedling growth promoter, which is applied at night. There are no effective means of restraint. The only thing that can be done is to advocate and constantly publicize to make the people understand that this is like drinking poison to quench thirst, which ultimately harms the interests of tea farmers.

However, tea prices remained low, and in order to ensure their profits, tea farmers had no choice but to increase the frequency and dosage of seedling growth promoters, in addition to the usual amount applied in previous years.

The goal is to improve the appearance of the tea leaves and increase production, thereby offsetting the decline in tea prices.

This choice by tea farmers has significantly reduced the taste of Shancheng Maojian tea. Coupled with the negative factor of pesticide residues, more customers are choosing other green teas as substitutes.

The sharp drop in tea sales has reduced tea merchants' profits. In order to obtain the expected profits, they have no choice but to lower prices and reduce the purchase price of tea.

This created a vicious cycle where bad money drives out good, turning Shancheng Maojian tea from a shining local brand into a typical example of pesticide residues caused by short-sighted pursuit of quick profits in modern agricultural products in just two or three years.

Before last year, the tea association in Shancheng mainly prevented the tea leaves from the sunny south side of Hubei from sprouting early and mixing them into Shancheng to be sold as Shancheng Maojian at high prices.

However, last year, the Shancheng Tea Association was surprised to find that they could no longer find any tea from Shannan on the market. Instead, tea from Shancheng was flowing to Shannan and being passed off as tea from there.

This has forced the tea association in Shannan to plan to establish an inspection team this year to prevent Shancheng Maojian tea from being mixed into their tea market and passed off as genuine.

The peaches and plums do not speak, but they create a trail of their own.

This act of voting with their feet is a slap in the face for Chongqing.

Since it's impossible to completely eliminate the practice of tea farmers using seedling growth promoters and herbicides to clear weeds and repel insects around tea gardens in the short term, sometimes we have to change our approach and find a new path.

The track that Feng Jianfei found was black tea.

After Duan Fengqing led a team to the southwest for investigation, he also felt that this project might be a way for Shancheng Maojian to break through the current predicament.

This year marks Feng Jianfei's third year in office in Chongqing. According to convention, even if he does not seek re-election, he still has two years left.

After Feng Jianfei promised Chen Fanping low-interest loans, policy support, low-priced land, and permission to build and sell commercial and collective housing on surplus land in the future, Chen Fanping raised more than three million yuan on his own and took out a loan of ten million yuan. Last year, he built a modern black tea production line and prepared to make great strides this year.

It can be said that this black tea factory has drained Fanping Tea House of its lifeblood. If it cannot make a profit, the blow to Fanping Tea House will be devastating, if not fatal.

Moreover, this year marks the official launch of the Fanpin Black Tea series, which requires substantial marketing and promotion expenses. Although the city government will cooperate with the company in extensive publicity, such as arranging comprehensive interviews and reports by local reporters, television stations, and newspapers, all of this requires the company to invest real money.
Therefore, it's conceivable that Chen Fanping will significantly lower the purchase price of seedlings this year in order to quickly recover funds, and the city can't say much about it, since he has already cooperated in setting up a black tea factory. Now that it's just after the New Year, the city's funds are already depleted, and they lack the confidence to interfere even if they wanted to.

As the largest tea merchant in the city, Fanpin Tea House's actions will only embolden other tea merchants to further drive down tea prices to unbelievable levels. Ultimately, this will result in tea farmers not even being able to afford the cost of the tea leaves when hiring tea pickers, essentially losing money and having no choice but to reduce production and shorten the tea-picking period.

At this moment, Zhao Chang'an suddenly seemed to see a huge business opportunity.

Just like when he mentioned on the yacht that he wanted to integrate the tea plantations in the lake area and name it "Shancheng Maojian," he actually thought that Duan Fengqing probably wouldn't agree.

Two years ago, the Ye Group launched the Taohua Lake Ring Project and signed tea purchase contracts with more than a dozen of the thirty villages around the lake. This is also the reason why the Ye Group has fallen out with the tea-producing areas of Chongqing.

So, can we revive this project now? Since we can't use the name "Shancheng Maojian" (山城毛尖), surely we can use "Taohuahu" (桃花湖) and "Jichishan" (鸡啼山), since these two places are now part of the cultural tourism group's business.

The fact that Wenjia Village purchased tea leaves at a high price has set a precedent. So, after the completion of the lakeside road, will the group integrate more surrounding villages and bring their tea gardens under its control?

There's also the tea garden town abandoned by Green Garden Group. To this day, disputes continue because they haven't fulfilled the previous tea purchase and support contracts, and Green Garden is still having a headache about getting rid of it.

The more than 6,000 mu of tea gardens there are the best contiguous tea gardens besides those around Peach Blossom Lake and Chicken Cry Mountain.

Xia Wenyang saw this potential and decided to use this tea garden to enter the tea industry.

This means that the cultural tourism group could very well control the three best production areas of Shancheng Maojian tea: about 100,000 mu of tea gardens around the lake, 30,000 mu of tea gardens in the Dabie Mountains around Jiti Mountain, and 20,000 mu of tea garden town and its surroundings. Every year, it produces nearly five to six million jin of lotus seed tea, sparrow tongue tea, and high-quality staple tea.

"This is going to kill Chen Fanping and the others!"

Zhao Chang'an smiled and muttered to himself, "But since you unscrupulous merchants who only know how to drain the pond to catch all the fish can't make this city's calling card, then I'll teach you how to do it!"

The biggest weakness of the cultural tourism group is that it lacks the ability to generate its own revenue. Relying solely on tourism income is simply not enough to cover the large amount of construction funds needed for various scenic spots that have been abandoned for many years.

Since the Rose Group took over the Cultural Tourism Group, in the past two years, the four shareholders, including Rose Group, Liu Mingxiong, Mai Guixue, and Lang Ruping, have invested a total of just over 30 million yuan, and have also taken out loans of 100 million yuan from banks.

It owns six scenic areas: Peach Blossom Lake, Chicken Cry Mountain, Lingshan Temple, West Jiuhua Mountain, Shannan Rhododendron Valley, and Jingangtai Hot Spring Pool.

The project is based on a contract, meaning these scenic area assets still belong to the local management department, while the cultural tourism group is responsible for their operation, maintenance, and repair.

If it is necessary to add new infrastructure and equipment, the cultural tourism group shall report to the management department of the scenic area's assets for review and approval, and agree on the depreciation period. After the depreciation period of these equipment and infrastructure expires, they shall belong to the scenic area's assets.

(End of this chapter)