Yichang, September 9 (Dong Xiaobin, Janes) "24 Zhaojun Cultural Tourism Festival· Hubei Green Brick Tea Special Event was held in Yichang, Hubei Province on the 2023th, and Hubei, the "major tea-producing province", "joined hands" in six provinces (autonomous regions) of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, jointly promoting the development of side selling tea, and jointly promoting exchanges, exchanges and blending among various ethnic groups.
"2023 Zhaojun Cultural Tourism Festival· 'Hubei Green Brick Tea Special Event' was held to promote melting with tea. Photo by reporter Dong Xiaobin
Border tea refers to tightly pressed tea and square pack tea specially sold to border ethnic areas. As the main producing area of border tea, Hubei has a long history of "tea to the future" with the border area. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Hubei green brick tea has been a must-have for the life of the people in the frontier, and is known as "the drink of life" and "the tea of unity".
During the event, 15 Hubei border tea enterprises jointly issued the proposal of "High-quality Development of Hubei Green Brick Tea to Promote Exchanges and Blending of Various Ethnic Groups". The Hubei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Yichang Municipal Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee and the Hohhot Ethnic Affairs Committee respectively signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Jointly Promoting the Construction of the Consciousness of the Chinese National Community.
Hubei green brick tea is known as "tea of unity" in the border area. Photo by reporter Dong Xiaobin
Zhao Junzhang, deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee, said that he will take this as an opportunity to promote economic, social and cultural exchanges and integration between the central and eastern regions and the western region, and between the border tea sales areas and the inland tea producing areas, and promote the protection, inheritance and utilization of Chinese tea cultural heritage.
On the same day, the participants visited and inspected the Hubei Changshengchuan Green Brick Tea Research Institute to understand the local demonstration experience and work results of using tea as a medium to promote national unity and progress.
Changsheng Chuan Hubei Green Brick Tea was founded by tea merchant He Dehai during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, and has a history of 651 years, and was once the main force of the tea trade in the Wanli tea ceremony. "We hope to use Hubei green brick tea as a link to create a new situation of industrial prosperity for Hubei and border ethnic areas." He Jiangang, the 19th generation inheritor of Changshengchuan, said.
Representatives who participated in the event visited Hubei Changshengchuan Green Brick Tea Research Institute. Photo by reporter Dong Xiaobin
Yichang is the hometown of Wang Zhaojun, the messenger of national unity, and according to legend, Zhaojun brought tea to the grassland when he was out of the country, opening the historical story of "tea and the world". In recent years, Yichang City and Xingshan County have held the Zhaojun Cultural Tourism Festival to tighten the bond of national unity and blending.
Feng Changhai, deputy director of the Department of Common Development of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, said that today's Hubei "using tea as a medium" continues to write the same story of national unity as "Zhaojun out of the country", building a concentric bridge to promote exchanges, exchanges and blending of various ethnic groups, and forging a strong sense of the Chinese national community. (End)