Bird songs woke me up at around six in the morning, reminding me of a talk about birds on our way to the picturesque county of Meitan in Zunyi, northern Guizhou province.

A local friend of mine shared his observations about a thriving family of turtledoves and the ever-expanding flock of migrant birds that visit their neighborhood each year. He was adding new evidence, besides the sweet air I had been greedily breathing in, of Guizhou's fine environmental superiority before a humble Beijinger.

From provincial capital Guiyang on, as we reached deeper northward into the territory of Zunyi, my colleagues and I found ourselves constantly in awe it was such a luxury to travel in the embrace of the boundless green of the misty rolling hills, though our schedule had no room for sightseeing.

It almost goes without saying that in today's China places with pristine nature reside in out-of-the-way locations untouched by the development craze.

Guizhou is very much "underdeveloped" in GDP terms, ranking the 26th nationwide last year. But like other regions struggling on the bottom rungs, officials there are eager to catch up.

The good news is that none of the local administrators we came across appeared to be the single-minded GDP chasers we have been accustomed to. With admirable awareness of ecological well-being, they are displaying respectable poise before the temptation of immediate GDP boosters and revenue generators.

Zunyi, famous as the location of a historic Red Army meeting that put Mao Zedong at the head of the Communist Party in mid 1935, now prides itself on enriching the local farming community without ruining its enviable environmental purity. It is being touted as proof that traditional planting can still be prosperous today.

While fuming factory chimneys are rare here, clusters of sloping-roofed rural residential buildings with peculiar northern-Guizhou features dot the well-preserved landscape.

In Xiazi township, which boasts the largest chili pepper transaction center in the southwest, the red hot traditional produce is turning a host of pepper farmers into millionaires. Proud locals shared with us the secret that two of the country's largest pepper-consuming areas, neighboring Chongqing and Sichuan, depend on their supplies. Fine quality has not only won Xiazi contracts with such popular brands as Haidilao restaurants and Wujiang pickles. The profit chain has extended locally to include storage, processing and transport.

There are more than 2,000 chili pepper dealers, more than 500 household transporters, and two special transport companies in Xiazi, according to Cai Jihong, who heads a 286-member chili pepper cooperative. A Korean business has approached the cooperative, as they want to grow Korean peppers in Xiazi.

Xiazi has been so important in the national chili pepper market that chilies from far-away Xinjiang, Henan, Shandong and Shanxi are now sold there.

In adjacent Meitan, too, local leaders are confident they can make it without damaging ecological excellence.

Their secret?

The eye-catching brown hotel in the shape of a gigantic teapot - "teapot No 1 under heaven", as locals proudly call it, atop Huoyan hill at the heart of the county seat - says it all.

Mou Wei, the county's young chief information officer, made no secret of his aspiration to have Meitan known as "the most beautiful countryside" in China. Meitan is strikingly similar to Wuyuan, a springtime tourist favorite in Jiangxi province, in climate, landscape, and even produce - both are traditional tea-growing areas and present stunning views of rape flowers in spring.

Miles before entering Meitan along highway G326, there are proud posters announcing the county's role as "the cradle of the modern Chinese tea industry". Meitan's tea-planting history dates back to the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907). But it wasn't industrialized until 1939, when the then Kuomintang government built an experimental tea farm there, cultivating a wartime foreign exchange earner. The local government chose to make it a pillar of the local economy in 1979 and it has made leapfrog progress since.

Tea was chosen because it conforms to the county's emphasis on ecological integrity, and it promises three to five times more profits than other crops, according to Tian Weixiang, chief of Meitan's Tea Industry Bureau.

So even Hetaoba, a village with no tea-growing history until the 1980s, has planted 670 hectares.

And tea does deliver. In the 216-people Tianjiagou village, per capita net income was more than 10,000 yuan ($1,616) last year.

Tea has not only enabled villagers to renovate their homes, it has nurtured hundreds of tea-related enterprises. The allure of the tea gardens and their natural surroundings produces tourist revenues, inspiring the local authorities to seriously consider tea-themed sightseeing.

With almost 27,000 hectares of tea farms in 2012, Meitan became the third largest tea-producing county in China.

No wonder the county plans to plant another 40,000 hectares by 2015.

No wonder we saw the tantalizing poster that shouts: "Live a farmer's life in Meitan. Let's go!"

The author is a senior writer with China Daily.

(China Daily 05/28/2013 page9)