Review: Tea Not Longer Profitable In China

Tittle of the Article: A County In China Sees Its Fortune In Tea Leaves Until a Bubble Burst
Author: Andrew Jacobs
Date of Publication: January 16, 2009
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/world/asia/17tea.html


Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The Southwest of China owns its prosperity to the production of green tea. It's brand of tea known as Pu'er enabled tea farmers and manufactures to become millionaries in the past. In recent yeras, the situation has changed dramatically due to the collapse of the tea market and as a result, thousands of Chinnese farmers became poor.

The few tea traders who survived the implosion of the Pu'er market admitted to be ruined. They explained that the rise and falls of the Pu'er market partly reflects the lack of investment opportunities that the government provides to the rural areas of the Southwest of China. They also affirmed that there's a concentration of cash in the big cities of the country.

The Southwest of China used to get crowded during the harvest and buyers came from all over the country to buy Pu'er tea. The prosperity encouraged producers to invest in the tea fields but after the crash of the market most were left with nothing but a valueless production of tea.
The fewer producers and farmers who survived the crash of the tea market hope the situation improves soon. There's an old belief in the southwest of china and that is that tea tastes better with age. For all those farmers who still have their production of tea in that area this is what gives them hope. They believe that al least they have a product that will be sold at a very high price, but only if the market reopens for them.