This article is reprinted from Xinhua.

On May 9, the launch event for Zhuyeqing's new Golden Leaf product and the release of the 333 Scientific Tea Drinking Initiative, themed Yellow Tea Golden Leaf — Empowering Health with Science and Technology, was held in Beijing.

Plaque-awarding ceremony for the Yellow Tea Research Center

At the event, the Yellow Tea Golden Leaf, jointly developed by Zhuyeqing Tea Industry and the National Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Germplasm Innovation and Resource Utilization of Anhui Agricultural University, was officially released, and the Yellow Tea Research Center jointly established by the two parties was officially inaugurated, creating a platform for continuous scientific research and innovation in the yellow tea category. Zhuyeqing Tea Industry also joined hands with the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Tea Marketing Association, Xinhua and a hundred nutritionists to launch the 333 Scientific Tea Drinking Initiative, advocating rational, moderate and scientific tea drinking and helping to bring the concept of scientific tea drinking into people's daily lives.

Science and Technology Empowering the Yellow Tea Industry

Bringing a Niche Category into People's Daily Lives

Tea is an important representative of traditional Chinese beverages. In recent years, demand for healthy consumption has continued to grow, and the natural health attributes of tea have attracted increasing attention. Against the backdrop of the in-depth advancement of the Healthy China strategy, nutrition and health are being integrated into public life at an accelerating pace. The Chinese Dietary Guidelines (2022) advocate plain water or tea as the main beverages.

Wang Fengzhong, Director of the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that in February 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the Outline for the Development of Food and Nutrition in China (2025-2030), which clearly put forward the key task of developing healthy tea beverages and listed tea as an important direction for nutrition-oriented foods.

As one of China's six major tea categories, yellow tea is warm, mellow and smooth in character and has been known since ancient times as the gold among teas. However, for a long time, yellow tea has been constrained by factors such as its core process relying on manual experience, insufficient standardization and relatively limited public awareness, and its industrial development remains at a relatively niche stage. How to improve the quality stability of yellow tea and raise awareness of the category through scientific and technological innovation has become an important topic for the high-quality development of the yellow tea industry.

Zhuyeqing's Yellow Tea Golden Leaf

Professor Wan Xiaochun, Director of the National Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Germplasm Innovation and Resource Utilization of Anhui Agricultural University, said while presenting the yellow tea research report that yellow tea is a relatively niche category among China's six major tea types, but its health value and industrial potential are being further explored. The team at Anhui Agricultural University has carried out more than ten years of research on the quality formation mechanism and health value of yellow tea, systematically analyzing the changing patterns of taste, aroma and characteristic components during yellow tea processing. Through this cooperation with Zhuyeqing Tea Industry, the aim is to promote yellow tea from a niche category to a broader consumer market, so that consumers can drink healthy, standard and high-quality yellow tea.

Yao Jingbo, Vice President of the China Tea Marketing Association

In his address, Yao Jingbo, Vice President of the China Tea Marketing Association, said that the trend of healthy consumption is driving the tea industry to accelerate its integration into the development pattern of the broader health industry. Zhuyeqing joining hands with research institutions to carry out joint research and development and industrial practice around the yellow tea category is an active exploration by a tea enterprise to follow the trend of healthy consumption and promote industrial upgrading.

From Traditional Craftsmanship to Intelligent Manufacturing

Improving the Quality Stability of Yellow Tea

The yellow tea production process is complex, and menhuang (the sealing-yellow step) is the key stage that shapes its quality characteristics. Traditional yellow tea production relies relatively heavily on the experience of the tea maker, placing high demands on process control and quality stability. One of the key emphases of the launch of Yellow Tea Golden Leaf is to promote the standardization and controllability of the traditional yellow tea process through modern scientific and technological means.

Professor Wang Yijun, Deputy Dean of the College of Food and Nutrition, Anhui Agricultural University

Professor Wang Yijun said that Yellow Tea Golden Leaf presents the typical characteristics of yellow tea in terms of liquor colour, aroma and taste. After optimization of the traditional three pan-firings and three sealings process and high-temperature roasting, the content of GCG, a characteristic component of Yellow Tea Golden Leaf, increased substantially to about 7.5 mg/g, roughly three times the level before processing. In the future, the two parties will continue scientific research cooperation on quality optimization, component analysis and functional exploration of yellow tea products, striving to make a cup of yellow tea that is both good to drink and healthy.

Tang Xianhong, Chairman of Sichuan Emeishan Zhuyeqing Tea Co., Ltd.

On the production side, Zhuyeqing's smart factory provides full-chain support for Yellow Tea Golden Leaf, from raw material selection and production processing to packaging and traceability. Tang Xianhong, Chairman of Sichuan Emeishan Zhuyeqing Tea Co., Ltd., explained that the factory is equipped with AI shape-sorting machines that can precisely select tea buds and leaves, a customized fine-processing production line that enables continuous roasting for aroma enhancement, and a digital-intelligent fully automated production line covering nitrogen-flushed preservation, precise measurement, automatic cartoning and labelling and traceability, driving yellow tea production from being experience-driven to being standardized and controllable.

Liu Xiangyun, Master Tea Maker

Master tea maker Liu Xiangyun said that yellow tea is known as the gold among teas, but the traditional yellow tea process has long relied on feel and experience, and quality stability and large-scale processing have always been difficult problems for the industry. Through joint industry-university-research efforts and the application of intelligent equipment, Yellow Tea Golden Leaf has achieved standardized upgrading on the basis of inheriting the craft, enabling consumers to enjoy high-quality yellow tea more consistently.

Multiple Parties Launch a Scientific Tea Drinking Initiative

Bringing Health Concepts into Daily Life

As health consumption awareness rises, tea consumption is moving from the traditional tea table to more life scenarios such as the office, outdoors, home and commuting. Consumers' demand for tea is gradually shifting from a simple focus on taste, origin and craft to a focus on health value, scientific evidence and ways of drinking.

Multiple parties jointly launch the 333 Scientific Tea Drinking Initiative

Zhuyeqing, together with Anhui Agricultural University, the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the China Tea Marketing Association, Xinhua and a hundred nutritionists, jointly launched the 333 Scientific Tea Drinking Initiative, advocating three cups of Golden Leaf a day, three golden time slots, and triple regulation for good health.

Yang Qingbing, Vice President of Xinhua

Yang Qingbing, Vice President of Xinhua, said that popularizing health concepts requires not only the support of scientific research but also an authoritative and rational communication environment. A company's brand value is reflected not only in its products and quality, but also in its response to social needs, public health and the pursuit of a better life. Zhuyeqing Tea Industry promotes product innovation through research cooperation, improves tea quality through technological and standardized means, and participates in the popularization of health knowledge through the scientific tea drinking initiative, demonstrating a tea enterprise's sense of responsibility in inheriting tea culture, promoting industrial upgrading and serving public health.

From research cooperation to product innovation, and from craft upgrading to the scientific tea drinking initiative, what Yellow Tea Golden Leaf represents is not merely the launch of a new product, but also a process in which a traditional tea category is re-understood, re-expressed and brought into daily life. When scientific evidence, industrial capability and everyday needs meet in a single cup of tea, traditional tea culture also finds a new way of being opened up. (Yang Dengyuan)