Tea farmers in Zhuwan village in Central China's Hubei province are busy picking fresh spring leaves from a 600 mu (40-hectare) plantation. Inside nearby workshops, workers process the leaves into yellow tea, a specialty that local officials say is reshaping the economics of tea farming in this once-impoverished revolutionary base area.

The shift comes as China intensifies efforts to accelerate the revitalization and development of old revolutionary base areas. On Friday, a set of guidelines was issued by the general offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council — the nation's Cabinet — with a focus on cultivating competitive local industries and integrating agriculture with tourism and cultural sectors.

For Zhuwan in Dawu county in the area of Dabie Mountains, yellow tea is the centerpiece of this strategy.

Once reliant almost entirely on spring harvests, local tea growers struggled with low returns from summer and autumn leaves that often went unused. By introducing a processing technique that involves multiple rounds of steaming and charcoal roasting, the village has turned those neglected leaves into a cash crop.

Tea can now be harvested across three seasons, generating year-round income growth. The model has also spread to surrounding areas, helping more than 2,000 farming households across eight nearby townships raise annual earnings by about 2,000 to 2,500 yuan ($275-$345) per mu of tea-growing land.

"The key for old revolutionary base areas is not massive new investment, but making better use of existing resources," said Liang Yunying, a national lawmaker and the Party secretary of Zhuwan village, who has helped lead the overhaul.

The Dabie Mountains region has more than 4 million mu of tea plantations, including about 300,000 mu in Dawu. Yet for years, growers faced a "spring feast and summer-autumn famine", Liang said.

Partnering with Anhui Agricultural University, Zhuwan standardized yellow tea production techniques and improved processing efficiency, allowing existing tea resources to be fully utilized without clearing new land.

Equally central is a profit-sharing structure designed to bind farmers closely to the industry. By linking universities, companies, cooperatives and farmers, villagers now earn through land leases, wages for plantation work, sales of fresh tea leaves and dividends from cooperative shares.

Many villagers, including women and the elderly, now find employment in tea picking and processing near their homes, with average monthly income increases of more than 2,000 yuan, Liang said.

Rather than pursuing large capital-intensive projects, Zhuwan established a 600-mu demonstration plantation and a standardized production line, allowing neighboring villages to observe and replicate the model at relatively low cost.

During the recently concluded two sessions, Liang proposed supporting Dawu county as a national demonstration zone for tea industry upgrading and as a pilot area for comprehensive use of summer and autumn tea in the Dabie Mountains.

Local producers are already expanding the value chain, experimenting with new products derived from yellow tea, including tea-flavored sweets and rice wine, which sold robustly during the Spring Festival holiday. Future plans include research into tea extracts and health-related products.

Zhuwan is also seeking to modernize cultivation and marketing. Working with universities, the village is building a "smart tea garden" with digital management and automated production lines.

On the sales side, the village has developed both online and offline channels, including e-commerce livestreaming and partnerships with retailers and tourism operators, to connect producers more directly with consumers.

Tourism forms another strategic pillar. Known as a "generals' county" for many military leaders it produced during China's revolutionary era, Dawu is rich in historical sites.

Liang says Zhuwan plans to integrate "red tourism" resources with tea plantations and tea-making experiences, offering visitors routes that include revolutionary history study, tea picking and traditional yellow tea processing. By linking tourism with agriculture, the village hopes to turn tea into a broader regional brand and convert visitor traffic into sales of local products.

lijing2009@chinadaily.com.cn