The discipline Folklore (Tea Culture) is a university-level Key Cultivation program in Zhejiang A & F University. With Ecological Culture as the framework, the discipline forms its academic support with tea culture, tea science, sociology, management, history, literature, folklore and other multiple disciplines in humanities and natural sciences, connects the academic sector with tea culture as a subject of research, and is currently the only tea culture research discipline in the field of ecological culture, both at home and abroad.
The discipline is set up in the Zhejiang Ecological Culture Research Center and the Zhejiang A & F University Ecological Civilization Research Center platform, with the main discipline asset being the Ecological Civilization Research Center and the College of Tea Culture of Zhejiang A & F University. The provincial and university Ecological Civilization centers assume the academic mission of studying the direction of tea culture in ecological culture, and recruit postgraduates in the field of ecological culture (tea culture) nationwide, to provide a strong top-level design space for the construction of tea culture discipline. The College of Tea Culture of Zhejiang A & F University is currently the only undergraduate college with a named tea culture major in China and takes the lead in the cultivation of professional talents in tea culture receiving undergraduate education. The college, jointly established by the China International Tea Culture Institute and Zhejiang A & F University in 2006, cultivates administrative talents, as well as research and teaching talents in Tea Culture Promotion and Management who are mainly undergraduates, postgraduates and overseas students, and undertakes the mission of providing talents in tea culture to China and foreign countries for tea culture study and communication.
Since its establishment, the discipline has made great achievements in aspects such as scientific research, teaching, social services and cultural heritage of tea culture.Chinese Tea Song, the presentation of an original large-scale tea culture stage art, has successfully performed in the UN Global Tea Industry Conference stage and the Shanghai World Expo China Element Pavilion. The college is specially featured by the tea culture art presentation called “Chinese Tea Song”, whose brand and teaching mode integrates tea culture teaching, education and cultivation, to form a unique tea culture status and create the teaching mode of tea culture “presentation”. In 2012, the original tea culture drama “Song of Six Times of Xian” (transliteration, referring to “羡” in Chinese) was performed publicly in Beijing, winning double prizes in the Drama Festival for College Students. In 2014, the College of Tea Culture and the University of Novi Sad (Serbia) jointly established the first Confucius Institute in the world based primarily on tea culture.
After many years of construction, the college has established its own relatively complete teaching system in many aspects such as teaching facilities, teaching staff, teaching materials and handouts, teaching modes, discipline construction, major orientation and student employment. The college is committed to building the College of Tea Culture into the highest level of international Chinese tea culture education and research institution in the nation, becoming a Chinese tea culture education and training center, a research center and international exchange, and of course an exhibition center.
There are five research directions for the discipline:
I.Research on Tea Culture and Art: The playwriting, musical dance, costume and dance stage design, prop design and other creative thinking and various means that are widely used to vividly embody Chinese tea culture and its essence, with the primary goal of education and cultivation.
The representative works include the large-scale tea culture stage art presentationChinese Tea Song, the large-scale ecological culture & tea culture historical playSong of Six Times of Xian, the large-scale six-episode documentary filmTea, A Story of A Leaf, among others. As the president unit of Hangzhou Association for Brand Promotion of Chinese Tea Capital, it has continuously planned and organized the “National Tea Day” activities from the very beginning, making the Tea Day into a statutory holiday.
II.Research on International Communication of Tea Culture: With ecological civilization work, internationalization and presentation as the guiding ideologies, the discipline is exchanged and presented in FAO inter-governmental international working conferences on Tea Leaves, the World Expo, and the International Tea Table Exhibition. With the discipline as a core power, the applied Confucius Institute (Serbia) featuring Chinese tea culture teaching and communication has been formally established, and the international tea culture communication base is also to be established soon.
III.Research on Tea Culture Brand Economy: The integration of tea culture and modern economic society is the intrinsic demand for the continuation and inheritance of the culture itself. The team respectively carries out research on tea culture economy from three perspectives of the agricultural culture industry: feasible economization of folk culture and inheritance and innovation of traditional culture, and opens up a new field of research by combining tea culture and tea science.
IV. Tea Culture History (including tea folklore and research on intangible tea culture heritage): The college is the Intangible Cultural Heritage (tea culture) and Teaching Base of Zhejiang province, and is currently applying for the World Intangible Cultural Heritage of “Chinese Tea Ceremony”, as well as doing work related to the construction of an “Inheritance Teaching Center for Research on Tea Folklore and Intangible Tea Culture Heritage”.
V. Utilization of Tea Resources and Comprehensive Research and Development of Tea Products: The college provides professional R & D in the tasting and brand management of traditional tea products, and carries out multilateral cooperation and development with respect to the application of combinations of tea products with Chinese food culture, as well as the development of a floral-type tea powder and the application of tea in other food fields.
The discipline currently has a team of high-quality experts and professors, including Professor Wang Xufeng, who is the Dean of the College of Tea Culture, a Tea Culture discipline leader and famous writer; Yao Guokun, who is a distinguished assistant dean & researcher; professor Zhou Xinhua, who is vice dean and an Archeology expert; associate professor Su Zhucheng, who is head of the Department of Tea Culture, an expert in tea science and a doctor; professor Li Qinpu, who is an expert in Anthropology and History; Doctor Guan Jianping, who is an expert in tea culture; distinguished professor Cheng Qikun, who is a researcher and former director of the Tea Research Institute in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; and visiting professor Yu Yue who is Chief Researcher of the Jiangxi Academy of Social Sciences. The discipline also employs a Tea Culture Entrepreneurship Mentor Team, which has relatively strong pull in China’s tea culture circles.
