Medog’s Tea Industry Booms: From Subistence Farming to Modern Prosperity in Tibet’s Himalayan Valleys

Since 2011, Medog County has invested a total of 169 million yuan in 22 projects, including tea industry quality improvement and standardised production and processing, to continuously enhance tea production capacity. 

At present, the county boasts 10 tea processing factories with 21 production lines, including 5 fully automatic and intelligent assembly lines and 16 standardised lines, capable of processing over 8,000 jin of fresh tea leaves per day.

Inside the modern production workshop of Nyingchi Medog Tea Industry Co., Ltd., intelligent robotic arms accurately complete processes such as withering, rolling and fermentation, with various parameters displayed in real time on screens. 

The 5G Internet of Things system has breathed new life into traditional tea-making techniques. De Ji Zhuo Ga, General Manager of the company, introduced that these are Tibet’s first fully automatic and intelligent tea processing lines, which have effectively raised the overall production level and scale of the local tea industry. 

As the only tea enterprise in Tibet selected as a “National Key Leading Enterprise in Agricultural Industrialization”, the company has also actively strengthened brand building and market expansion with government support, establishing 9 direct-sale stores in Lhasa, Guangzhou and other cities, cooperating with over 90 offline distributors and 3 e-commerce platforms, with cumulative sales exceeding 100 million yuan.

Medog has also explored the integration of tea and tourism, leveraging its alpine organic tea gardens and beautiful natural scenery to create eco-tourism attractions such as Piaomiao Tea Garden and Guoguotang Tea Garden. Zhang Jin Ding, Deputy Township Head of Ganden Township and Secretary of Gelin Village Party Branch, said that relying on Piaomiao Tea Garden, Gelin Village received over 85,000 tourists last year, generating 1.5 million yuan in income from catering, accommodation, tea leaves and under-forest products.