Paths featuring pink cherry blossoms wind through terraces at Hsieh Tung-ching's tea garden in Yongfu town, Fujian province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Two decades ago, a group of tea farmers crossed the Taiwan Straits in search of opportunities on the Chinese mainland.

They settled in the mountainous town of Yongfu, Fujian province, where the geography and climate are similar to those in the area around Alishan Mountain, a major oolong tea production area in Taiwan.

After years of efforts opening up the barren hills, cultivating tea trees and building plants to process the leaves, the newcomers took root in the once backward town, which is now dotted with green terraced gardens.

Their success in growing oolong tea means Yongfu is now known as the "Alishan Mountain of the Chinese mainland". Now, the younger generation, many children of the pioneers, is gradually taking over the local tea industry.

Bolstered by central government policies to promote rural vitalization and provide people from Taiwan with the same status and treatment as the locals, the young people have created several tourism projects around the tea gardens to drive a sectoral upgrade.

"People like me, from the first generation, are now in their 60s, so we are slowly making way for the next generation, people generally in their 30s with a good level of education," said Hsieh Tung-ching, who was the first entrepreneur to arrive in Yongfu from Taiwan and grow tea.

"Their soil and infrastructure are better than ours were, so they should carry on the older generation's hardworking, pioneering spirit."

The young people have developed many new tourism projects, using the internet to promote brands and developing derivatives such as prepackaged milk tea and tea bags, which have never been seen in the area before.

Yang Yung-an, who took over his father's tea garden five years ago, sensed the growing trend for outdoor education in the mainland early, so since the end of 2018 he has cooperated with local schools to design related activities for teenagers.

The programs allow students to get close to nature on the mountains and learn to identify different plants and insects, pick tea leaves by hand and take part in some of the processing steps at the 31-year-old's facility.

They also learn about China's tea culture by attending a demonstration in which performers explain how to make the perfect cup of tea. Later, they can take the tea they have processed home so they can taste it with their families.

"Because they had been in classrooms for so long, the students were so happy that they even thought the weeds were interesting. They brought home the tea they had made, so some of the families learned about it and bought more later. The activities had a very good promotional effect," Yang said.

Last year's COVID-19 outbreak restricted the number of students visiting the tea garden to about 4,000 students, a little more than half the 7,000 who attended in 2019.

"My father's generation focused on tea production. Now, I have a tourism development plan for the garden, including tour routes and the creation of scenery for visitors to photograph," Yang said.