Tourists find tea and more in Anhui

Leaves must be harvested carefully by hand, but it's the famous trace of orchid that connoisseurs crave.

In the mountains of southern Anhui province, rain is refilling the creeks and bringing waterfalls back to life, with fresh flowers adding color to the black and white residential architecture. Spring has always been favored by tourists.

Many visitors are connoisseurs of tea, which is cultivated on about 167,000 hectares across the province.

Most tourists choose the city of Huangshan to experience living tea culture partly thanks to the fame of Huangshan Mountain, or Yellow Mountain, which is listed as a UNESCO cultural and natural heritage, as well as a World Geopark site.

The city, known as Huizhou in ancient times, is also famous for high-quality tea, such as Huangshan maofeng and Taiping houkui.

Nowadays, with the coronavirus threat, visiting places with tourism resources but few tourists is desirable－a sort of natural social distancing.

One of the places worth a look is Xuancheng city's Jingxian county, which neighbors Huangshan. Tea production has been a pillar industry of the county, whose residents number about 300,000. There are around 50,000 tea farmers.

Tingxi township governs nine villages and has been increasingly busy since the beginning of April, as the tea picking season kicked off. It is the core production area for a local tea brand called Jingxian Lanxiang, or orchid fragrance.