This dissertation explores Chinese rural people’s daily lives along with the strategies they employ to deal with problems ensuing from market-oriented production of tea. Ethnographic research for this study was done in Tiancun, a mountainous village in southern Fujian province located in an Oolong tea growing region in China. The Tiancun tea agribusiness has developed on a large scale only in recent years. Because there is no uniform standard by which to judge the taste of tea, Tiancun villagers who produce tea must navigate through a hierarchical value system of taste which is constructed by forces such as the state, the local governments, the big tea companies and the Taiwanese tea drinking culture.

Tiancun tea producers receive very little support from local governments for t...[ Read more ]

This dissertation explores Chinese rural people’s daily lives along with the strategies they employ to deal with problems ensuing from market-oriented production of tea. Ethnographic research for this study was done in Tiancun, a mountainous village in southern Fujian province located in an Oolong tea growing region in China. The Tiancun tea agribusiness has developed on a large scale only in recent years. Because there is no uniform standard by which to judge the taste of tea, Tiancun villagers who produce tea must navigate through a hierarchical value system of taste which is constructed by forces such as the state, the local governments, the big tea companies and the Taiwanese tea drinking culture.

Tiancun tea producers receive very little support from local governments for their tea agribusiness, and are therefore extremely concerned that the color and aroma of their tea meet a high taste standard. They highlight the advantages of the cold weather in Tiancun, saying that it is conducive to growing tea with a good aroma. Tiancun villagers take part in traditional activities such as worshipping gods and tending to personal networks in order to deal with the uncertainties inherent in the tea production business. They purchase new machinery and improve their knowledge of modern tea drinking methods. Despite these efforts, however, the villagers have not become players in the construction of taste. I argue that villagers who are absent from the construction of taste are marginalized in the tea industry and are placed at the bottom of the system. These villagers have tried to be present in the construction of taste but have not succeeded in promoting the value of their products in the tea value hierarchy.