2023-06-24 14:00:07
Harvesting tea sprouts at a tea garden in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, March 28, 2023. LONG WEI /FEATURECHINA/MAXPPP
Smartphone in one hand, Wu Wen points, with the other, to a shriveled tea leaf with withered edges. “You see, that’s a leaf left over from last year’s heat wave! », she explains to her subscribers on the Douyin platform, the Chinese version of TikTok. In her thirties, Wu Wen took over the family tea production five years ago. “Longjing”, “dragon well”, a few kilometers from the village which gives its name to the famous appellation of green tea. His 5 mu (one-third hectare) field is located west of Hangzhou, in a large patch of greenery in the middle of a metropolis of 10 million people, west of Shanghai.
Ten months after the exceptional heat wave that hit China in the summer of 2022, tea producers in the region are still paying the consequences. “We had at least 40% less production, testifies Wu Wenbut we are not the most affected: look »she said, showing three dead plants, stored on the edge of the neighboring field.
In August 2022, temperatures in China regularly exceeded 40°C, especially in the Yangtze basin, one of the main rivers that crosses China from west to east. Chongqing, a western metropolis crossed by the river, had experienced a temperature of 45 ° C in August. The Yangtze had recorded its lowest levels ever measured. Jiangxi province, usually verdant, had seen seventy days of rain between August and October.
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The phenomenon is likely to repeat itself. China is experiencing extreme temperatures: on May 29, Shanghai recorded a record for the month with 36.7°C. Since then, northern China has experienced extraordinary temperatures: on June 22, the mercury rose to 41.1°C in Beijing, again a record for the period.
ripped off feet
Sensitive to the climate, tea production has been strongly affected, sometimes delayed. Some black teas have two harvests, but green tea is only harvested once a year, in the spring. In 2023, harvests fell by 40% in Henan (center), by 30% in Fujian, a southeastern coastal province known for its Oolong tea, and by 20% in Yunnan, in the south, which produces tea. fermented like Pu-Erh. In Zhejiang, a province of which Hangzhou is the capital, production fell by 10% on average, according to the Chinese Association of Tea Distributors.
For Wu Wen, the damage is limited: if her tea plants have produced less, the scarcity has raised prices this year, she explains, enough to compensate a little. Others are less fortunate: a stone’s throw from his small plot, the rows of small tender green shrubs give way to the ocher earth. Several plots are covered with small green dots, young tea shoots planted to replace vines uprooted the previous summer. Above, metal arches criss-cross the plot. “It is used to cover the plants with nets in the summer, to protect them from the sun. Young plants are very sensitive, they would scorch in the first heat »explique Wu Wen.
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