Villagers pick tea leaves at a tea garden in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on March 14, 2021. [Photo/IC]

The Information Office of the Zhejiang provincial government held a news conference in the provincial capital of Hangzhou on May 11 to release information about the upcoming 4th China International Tea Expo.

Co-hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Zhejiang provincial government, the tea expo is slated to take place at the Hangzhou International Expo Center from May 21 to 25.

The expo will also comprise a national-level event in celebration of International Tea Day, which falls on May 21 every year. Among the participants will be the ambassadors to China of 20 countries, including Kenya, Morocco, the Netherlands, Russia, Chile, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka, as well as officials from the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The 4th tea expo, which should have been held in 2020 but was postponed to this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has 3,423 exhibition booths, which occupy a total area of 70,000 square meters, up 10 percent from the third edition of the expo in May 2019. There will be more than 1,500 exhibiting tea enterprises and 3,653 registered tea buyers, both of which surpassed expectations.

Officials at the news briefing said that the COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the global tea industry last year but has also boosted consumer demand for healthy food like tea in the long run. They expressed a belief that the upcoming tea expo will help match tea buyers and producers, draw in investment, promote tea brands, and form a new development model for the tea industry.

A total of 222 Zhejiang-based tea enterprises will occupy 512 exhibition booths at the expo, both of which are record numbers. Their exhibits include premium green tea, black tea, tea sets, and other tea-related products.