Recently, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions announced the results of the 2026 National May 1st Labor Award selection, and our university's National Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Germplasm Innovation and Resource Utilization was awarded the title of National Workers' Pioneer Team.

In recent years, the laboratory has adhered to the four orientations, striving to build a new highland of world-class basic theory in tea science, a main front for talent aggregation and cultivation, a source of scientific and technological innovation and achievement transformation, and a centre for international exchange and cooperation, creating a national strategic scientific and technological force for the tea industry and making important contributions to promoting the high-quality development of China's tea industry.

In recent years, the laboratory has led 172 projects at provincial and ministerial level and above. The key technologies and equipment it developed for automated green tea processing and digital quality control have broken foreign technological monopolies. Over ten years it drew the world's first high-quality tea plant genome map, led the formulation of four ISO international standards including Tea — Classification and Tea — Chemical Classification, and reversed the passive situation of China lacking leadership in the formulation of international tea standards. It has received one Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and three First Prizes of the Anhui Provincial Science and Technology Award, been granted more than 200 national invention patents, formulated or revised four national standards, bred and registered seven national-level new tea plant varieties, and led the release of the world's first tea industry large model. It has built a nationwide tea industry science and technology service network integrating production, learning, research and application, providing key support for the high-quality development of the tea industry in Anhui, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Henan, Hubei and Tibet. It has also been selected as an innovation team under the Ministry of Education's Innovation Team Development Plan and as a National Huang Danian-Style Teachers' Team in colleges and universities, and has been honoured with titles including National Advanced Collective of Professional and Technical Personnel, the National Innovation Competition Award, the Anhui Provincial Workers' Pioneer Team, the Anhui Provincial Talent Introduction Platform Award and the Anhui Youth May 4th Medal Collective.

The National Workers' Pioneer Team title is one of the highest honours awarded by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions to advanced collectives that have made outstanding contributions to the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It aims to commend advanced collectives that create first-class work, service, performance and teams in promoting development, advancing social progress and serving the people, and enjoys extremely high social recognition and industry demonstration value. (Text: Zhang Xianlin; Photos: Hu Zhengfei; First review: Jiang Jiasheng; Second review: Zheng Xuelin; Third review: Cao Lei)