New guidelines aim to brew more, better tea exports

Growing and brewing tea was elevated to an art form by Lu Yu of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), whose treatise is considered the bible of tea culture throughout Asia.

But the new government guidelines for growers and processors, to be released on Oct 1, are not about sipping tea in a pavilion by a lily pond - they are serious business.

Tea is one of China's major export commodities. The country shipped 151,000 tons of tea worth a total of $344 million to overseas markets in the first half of this year, up 5.49 percent year-on-year.