Ahead of the Qingming Festival, which also marks the peak season of production and sales of Biluochun tea produced from Dongting Mountain in Wuzhong District, Suzhou, tea-making master Yan Jielong is getting busier than before because he needs to manage his own company and also train six new apprentices.
Biluochun is a famous green tea renowned for its delicate appearance, fruity taste, floral aroma. Yan is an inheritor of the traditional tea-making techniques, listed as a national intangible cultural heritage. The six apprentices are all students majoring in tea-making and marketing from the Suzhou Polytechnic Institute of Agriculture.
The institute has made more efforts to promote school-enterprise cooperation in recent years, with Yan’s company one of its partners.
Tea-making master Yan Jielong (center) with two apprentices.
Yuan Weiming, dean of the institute’s College of Horticulture Science and Technology, said that the school hopes to help students have a deeper understanding of the industry, directly learn about the craftsman spirit from masters, and also explore new ways to keep the traditional tea-making techniques stay longer.
Yan Jielong said that college students are different from ordinary tea-making workers and a modern mentoring system means cultivating skilled talents with all-round development in order to support the industrial development. The training will combine theories with practices, such as plucking tea leaves and making tea. Students will also learn about etiquettes, sales, management, branding and other aspects of the tea industry so they can be better prepared to preserve the authenticity of Biluochun from Dongting Mountain.
