CRI听力:Scottish Tea Growing Sales Success in China

The tea grown in Scotland sells for around 2,000 pounds per kilogram, and 80 percent of this year's harvest has already been snapped up by Asian clients, especially those in China.

Chris Henry, manager of the Wee Tea Plantation says growing tea in Scotland isn't the easiest job, with the high winds perhaps the biggest challenge.

"You bring these on from nothing, from a seed and you watch them grow and develop through time, like you do with a child, they go from a baby right up. These are basically my kids because I have to look after them, make sure they're all right, make sure they're growing the way they should. So you can relate to that, bringing up kids, your trees are the same kind of idea if you like."

Currently ten growers are producing tea around the country and by the end of the year another ten will have joined the newly founded Scottish Tea Growers Association.

Owner of the Wee Tea Plantation, Tam O'Braan sells 80 percent of the tea he grows to Asia, and in particular China where the demand for white tea is driving growth.

Despite the rapid demand for his tea, O'Braan has no plans to turn his back on the small-scale business model that he believes is essential to the taste of his tea.

"No, we're not looking to make a Scottish tea bag and we're not looking to out Kenya Kenya, we're not looking to plant up the highlands with loads and loads of tea plants, it's about boutique, small, high-end... I think more along the pharmaceutical or the jewellery industry where you've got small, high-value and highly-polished and perfect."

On the Isle of Mull the latest project is growing matcha tea – a type of refined, green, powdered tea originally from Japan.

O'Braan, who is also an agricultural chemist specialising in finding ways to grow crops in the most difficult environments, is preparing to pick the first flush.

Martin Gibsons' crop once suffered extensive wind damage, but thanks to O'Braan, it's now protected from high-winds by cane fences.

"The Isle of Mull itself is a wonderful place but the weather has a lot to be handled and particularly the wind. Now our first crop of tea, of over 50 plus plants, and they were doing quite well, they were quite high up in the hill, we thought that would be nearer the sunshine etcetera, it's a lot nearer the wind and basically the leaves blew off."

The leaves picked will need to be rushed back to the factory to be steamed, dried and crushed to produce the powdery matcha tea.

O'Braan has big plans for his fledgling Scottish tea industry and would eventually like to link a network of 28 tea plantations across the country.

He wants to create a tea tourism industry that he hopes could rival the popularity of Scotland's whisky distilleries.

For CRI, this is Min Rui.