Amidst the verdant splendor of spring tea and the rich aroma of freshly picked leaves, the "Tea-Fragrant Jingnan, Visionary Shiji — The 'Longed-for Life' Between the Yangtze and the Huaihe" spring media tour took place on April 18 in Shiji Town, Nanqiao District.

In the early morning at Jingnan Village, a thin mist hovered over the vast expanse of tea plantations. At 9 a.m., the press tour group set off from the Vision·Poetry Collection Homestay and hiked along a scenic mountain trail. Lined with lush green tea terraces and dotted with wildflowers, the path offered a glimpse of local tea farmers at work. The journalists experienced the joy of tea picking firsthand, capturing with their lenses the wildflowers, spring bamboo shoots, and the farmers' labor. From the observation deck, a panoramic view of Jingnan Village unfolded — a picturesque countryside scene featuring well-arranged boutique homestays, clean village roads, and crisscrossing tea gardens.

The drone-captured aerial images revealed tea garden contours resembling the fingerprints of the earth. According to reports, as the core production area of the "Eastern Anhui Tea Village," Jingnan Village has actively explored a benefit-linked mechanism of "village collective + enterprise + farmer." Through this model, 27,000 square meters of idle rural homesteads and 15,000 mu of tea gardens have been turned into shares. The village has also entered into strategic cooperation with seven local tea enterprises, laying a preliminary foundation for the development pattern of "one mountain, one garden, one base."

In the afternoon, Jingnan Village Mall was bustling with activity. Schoolchildren on a study tour from urban Chuzhou flooded into the wood-fired bakery, eagerly waiting for freshly baked handmade pizzas. Meanwhile, over twenty cyclists from a Nanjing bike club each ordered a bowl of sweet, refreshing sugar water to wash away the dust of their journey. According to reports, with the arrival of distinctive merchants such as a wood-fired bakery, Yiduo Coffee, and Nanxi Sugar House, Jingnan Village Mall has evolved into a unique new rural consumption scene, injecting lasting youthful energy and commercial momentum into rural revitalization.

The vision of "transforming tea areas into scenic spots and tea mountains into mountains of gold" is steadily becoming a reality. With the meticulous development of projects such as "Jingnan Tea Stay" and "Tea-Fragrant Peninsula," the tea tourism route "Brewing Tea with Fresh Spring Water, Savoring the Tea Aroma of Shiji" has been recognized as one of the "First Top Ten Most Beautiful Tea Tourism Routes in Anhui Province." Jingnan Village has also been selected as one of the first batch of Beautiful Tea Villages in Anhui. In 2025 alone, tea tourism revenue in Shiji Town reached approximately 30 million yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. Across Nanqiao District, the total tea plantation area stands at about 38,000 mu, producing 1,220 tons of dried tea annually, with an average annual comprehensive output value exceeding 300 million yuan over the past three years.

"Currently, Nanqiao District is leveraging the provincial-level modern agricultural industrial park in Shiji Town as a platform to expand the scale of organic tea gardens, strengthen the brand influence of 'Xijian Chunxue' (Spring Snow of West Stream), and promote the high-quality development of the tea industry toward greener, brand-driven, and integrated approaches," said a representative from the relevant department of Nanqiao District. "This spring, why not follow the fragrance of tea to Jingnan? In the slow, leisurely moments of brewing tea by the stove, pick a basket of spring tea with your own hands, savor a cup of fine tea, and join us in a poetic rendezvous between tea and the distant horizon."

Source: Chuzhou Daily