She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
She says: « Let tea flowers serve for the health of all mankind while China opens to the world ».
Jiying Xu – China
She works for the Zhonglinluyuan (Beijing) Tea Flowers Research Center.
Xu Jiying is director of the Zhonglinluyuan (Beijing) Tea Flowers Research Center. She has devoted more than 20 years to the study of the uses of tea flowers, thus changing this once ignored part of tea trees into an important asset to mankind. Without charging any fees, she has devised and conducted training courses for over 10,000 tea planters from all over China.This is a true story about a special person with her special connection with tea flowers.
In the winter of 1949, various kinds of beautiful tree flowers were blossoming in the tea gardens in the hilly areas of Anhui Province, China. At the time, a child from a Xu family, who had grown tea there for generations, died. The sad father, accompanied by neighbors, went out for a walk. One big tea tree in bloom caught the eye. When they got closer to the tree, they found a dying baby girl covered in torn clothes lying underneath it. They regarded this girl as a flower angel sent by God to the Xu family to compensate for their loss. The little girl grew up in the tea garden and has never since wandered far. Xu Jiying is known as the person who is passionate about tea; she is also the first person to do research and development on tea flowers.
When Xu was a teenager, she felt sad, as no one seemed to care for the blooming and withering of the beautiful tea flowers in the tea garden. She made it her mission to make tea flowers known to people.
Xu finally realized her childhood dream when she was admitted by the Anhui Agricultural University to study in the department of tea. She learned from experts and professors, absorbing the essence of knowledge available to her.
Today, she is the director of the Zhonglinluyuan (Beijing) Tea Flowers Research Center. After 20 years of research on the application of tea tree flowers, she has turned this once-ignored part of the plant into an important asset. She has already obtained patent rights in China and 47 countries around the world and her product has won the excellence award from the Science and Technology Department of the Chinese government.
Xu Jiying has a special passion for tea. She says, “I am a tea person. To be a tea person you should have the spirit of sacrificing for tea. In recent years, the tea industry has suffered a number of blows: instability in the market, low prices and low income for tea planters. In order to revitalize and improve the production of tea, it is important to develop side products, to advocate the use of all parts of tea trees, and apply the resources of tea flowers to develop tea products. Xu says, “Research is the first step. Only if it were proved safe and feasible scientifically, would I then lobby for the support of others. If not, I would just give up. The road of science is never straight. We cannot wait for others to do the research work that has not been done before. It is our duty to expand new uses of tea and create new production.”
It is no easy task to do research on and develop the use of tea flowers. For over 20 years, Xu Jiying has visited all major tea gardens across China and gained substantial theoretical and practical experience. She has spent more than 20 million yuan on her research work, including a comprehensive scientific investigation on the practical use of the substances of tea flowers. She has devoted everything to her work and is considered a workaholic, a tea lover and even a maniac! Yet she does not care.
Tea originated in China and China is a large producer of tea. There are tea gardens in 19 provinces/cities with a total area of 18.75 million mu, 80 millions tea planters and some 50 million people engaged in tea sales. Altogether, 10 per cent of the Chinese population is working in the tea production industry. Thus, growing tea is an important economic activity in rural areas. However, as most of the tea gardens are located in less developed ethnic minority areas and poor mountainous regions, the income per capita of tea growers is less than 2000 Yuan a year. The development of the tea flower as a resource has become a starting point in economic sustainability in these tea areas. As a result, there is an increase in income of 300 to 600 Yuan per acre. Minorities and tea planters living in these less developed areas have also become richer.
In 2004, Xu Jiying co-operated with Shanghai, Anhui, Zhejiang and Sichuan Provinces and formed a production chain of tea flowers. The first step of this chain is to launch a project to establish tens of thousands of shops, thousands of products and hundreds of production bases. This project aims at improving the conditions in agriculture, in the rural areas, and among the peasants, and providing employment for school graduates, veteran soldiers and the unemployed. As a result, there will be jobs for the unemployed, opportunities for businessmen, and new business for under performing shops. It is expected that this project will bring about significant social and economic benefits. Xu, however, says, “It is just the beginning of a long march.”
(1000PeaceWomen).
Sorry, I can find no other information of Jiying Xu, China in the internet, being certified it would be the wanted person.