Organic innovation helps Pu'er brew business success

Based on the thriving organic tea industry, other growers have explored ways of raising their products to a higher level.

In addition to Pu'er, a lot of white tea is grown in the city. He Haishan, founder of Jingsu Tea Co, devised processing techniques that largely helped improve the taste and quality of white tea.

Traditional processing consists of just two steps, He said: picking the tea buds and drying them.

"Many people think that making it is very simple. In fact, it is not at all easy to make good white tea," he said.

To produce the best tea, He conducted numerous experiments and used 3 metric tons of leaves to identify the best temperature and humidity for fermentation to achieve a high-quality product.

His research revealed that to obtain the best performance of the chemicals in tea leaves, the optimum processing temperature must be 21 C to 26 C, and the moisture content of the leaves has to be maintained at about 6 percent.

Launched in 2016, the company is still young, but He has recognized the huge potential of white tea.

"The strains of white tea we selected are produced by the asexual reproduction method, and they have the potential for mass production. That will help drive the development of the organic tea industry in a new direction," he said.