Brewing a way out of poverty

Tea has helped poor farmers in Yunnan find a way out of destitution thanks to the efforts of one man who had a chance to encounter some local farmers there, Yang Feiyue reports.

Ren Huaican now looks to tea from Yunnan after the green leaves worked magic for him. Ren was suffering mass mouth ulcers when he visited the Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er city back in the spring of 2006. "I had trouble eating," he says.

Then, he saw a row of ancient tea trees on the mountain, and some local farmers were harvesting tea leaves. "So, I picked off six or seven leaves and chewed them," Ren recalls.