Farmers seek to certify King's tea to attract overseas consumers

Farmers cut the stems in the upper side of wild-crafted green trees in Hadong to make harvesting easier. They call this process “gaeng-shin” or renewal. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-cheol

Facing falling domestic demand, green tea farmers look to overseas markets

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The southern rural county of Hadong, home to premium wild-crafted green tea also known as “King’s tea” for it had been a favorite of ancient monarchs, had rare foreign visitors earlier this month.

On Aug. 2, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) delegation led by Chinese Academy of Sciences professor Min Quingwen arrived for a three-day visit there.

Min and fellow experts from the FAO’s Scientific Advisory Committee met local green tea farmers and County Mayor Youn Sang-ki before going on a guided tour of the cluster of green tea farms in the county’s northwestern part of Hwagye.

They were there to assess if the area was suited for designation as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) site. The FAO awards the certification after thorough review of a proposal and site visits, looking closely into if the proposed site meets all requirements about biodiversity, unique organic farming tradition and practices.

Park Sung-yeon, who joined the FAO experts’ site visit as a representative of 2,000 local green tea farmers to answer their questions and brief them on local organic farming practices, tea culture and history, said their visit was “very encouraging.”

“The FAO experts said green tea farms here had it all to offer the GIAHS certification,” he said. “I hope we can make it.”

Park ushered the FAO delegation to the nearby Ssanggye Temple to show them historic evidence that organic green tea farming and tea culture has been part of people’s lives for over 1,000 years.

Inside the temple, which was first built in 772, a tower established in 887 commemorates the great Buddhist monk Jingam from the Unified Silla era (668-935). The texts inscribed in the tower mention how people in those days enjoyed green tea.

“We showed those texts to the FAO delegates as evidence to support our claim that Hadong is where green tea culture in Korea began and that we have developed our own organic farming techniques since green tea seeds were brought from China and planted in this area in 828,” Park said.

The FAO scientists will present their findings during a meeting with other Scientific Advisory Group members in September. Their final decision about Hadong green tea farms’ GIAHS certification is expected to be made later this year.

The FAO delegation’s visit came amid a deep recession in the local green tea industry, as farmers grapple with a shrinking domestic tea market. In 2004, annual green tea consumption in Korea marked 3,400 tons but it fell to 1,100 tons in 2014.

The shrinking green tea market stood in stark contrast to the ever-growing coffee market. In 2009, Korea’s coffee imports were $7 million but rose to $35 million in 2015, a five-fold increase over six years.

“I don’t think the GIAHS certification is a game changer through which we can boost our income immediately,” Park said. “But if our efforts bear fruit, I believe the certification would help raise the profile of our green tea overseas which will consequently help us boost our income. It will take time, though.”

Facing shrinking domestic consumption, green tea farmers have turned their eyes to overseas markets and their endeavors have made some meaningful progress.

In January, Hadong County signed a $2.15 million contract to provide 100 tons of green tea powder to global coffee chain Starbucks, The green tea powder has since been used as an ingredient in Starbucks’ green tea beverage sold in Starbucks cafes all over the world.

“We are also selling green tea to Saudi Arabia, albeit our export volume is small. We’re interested in such big markets as the United States and Russia to break through a stalemate in domestic green tea consumption,” Park said.

Bae Min-sik, a researcher for the National Assembly Research Service, said green tea farmers’ endeavor to find opportunities in overseas markets appears to be a positive move, considering that organic food consumption is on the rise globally.

According to him, consumers are taking more interest in how crops they consume were raised and thus green tea farmers from Hadong can benefit from such changing trends.

Unlike in Boseong where green tea farms and plantations are mechanized, green tea leaves in Hadong are handpicked during the crop production period — April and May.

Green tea trees there are wild and grown without pesticides.

Bae said farmers also can benefit through tourism, if the Hadong green tea farm sites win certification.

“As we see in Japan’s case, GIAHS certification can help local farmers boost their income,” he said. Japan has five GIAHS sites, including Aso grasslands and green tea farms in Shizuoka.

“Some traditional Japanese ryokan inns advertise meals they provide use GIAHS-certified crops raised in the community to attract tourists. Local farmers will be better off if such a marketing strategy appeals to and eventually attracts more tourists.”

If the FAO certifies organic green tea practices in Hadong, it will be the third of its kind in Korea, following Gudeljang irrigated rice system and Batdam agricultural system on Jeju Island.

Hadong, which is called a holy place for green tea for its historic green tea farms, is one of two major premium green-tea-producing counties in Korea. Boseong County, 70 kilometers southwest of Hadong, takes the lion’s share (40 percent) of green tea production and 200 tea plantations are scattered across 1,063 hectares at lower elevations.

The scale of tea production in Hadong is smaller than that of Boesong, partly because farms in Hadong were not mechanized mainly because of their geographic location.

Two thousand small farmers cultivate green tea around Ssanggye Temple. These farms are located at the foot of mountains and surrounded with the valleys and mountains 1,000 meters above sea level.

Owing to the steep slopes of those small-scale farms, farmers were unable to merchandize their farms. Green tea farmers there have developed their own way of cultivating tea which has been passed down to their descendents for centuries since green tea trees first grew there in 828.

Pruning and weeding are an important part of green tea production.

“As farmers here don’t use harvest machines, pruning is very important for sustainable farming,” Park said. “If the trees are tall, farmers can’t easily pick tea leaves. So we cut the stems in the upper side of the trees to make harvesting easier. We call this process gaengsin (renewal).”

The stems and leaves that are removed are used as natural pesticide. As time goes by, they rot, facilitate microbial activity in soil and prevent soil erosion. Weeds near green tea trees are also used as natural pesticide. Such a virtuous cycle of organic farming helps green tea there develop a unique flavor and taste.

Park said gaengsin and weeding are two unique traditional techniques green tea farmers in Handong have used for centuries to grow green tea.

“We don’t know since when such organic techniques were used,” he said. “But here we have many farmers who inherited green tea farms from their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers. We learned such agricultural methods from our ancestors.”