Rare freezing weather has swept across more than 10,000 ancient tea plantations in southwest China's Yunnan Province over the past several days, hurting production of the highly-valued crop, local authorities said Wednesday.
By Tuesday, the cold snap had reached nine townships in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, which has a subtropical climate and contains the largest area of tropical rainforest in China.
In Menghai County, home to famous Pu'er tea, more than 50,000 mu of tea plantations have seen production go down, including 12,000 mu of ancient tea plantations where the plants have existed for 800 to 1,700 years.
Yunnan tea picked from ancient plants can sell for several hundred yuan to more than 10,000 yuan (1,520 U.S. dollars) per kilogram, compared to ordinary tea plants that sell for less than 100 yuan per kilogram.
A total of 848,000 mu (56,533.3 hectares) of tropical crops, such as bananas, coffee, tea, and rubber, have also been adversely affected, according to the prefecture's publicity office.
Wang Haiquan, director of the county's publicity office, said it's the worst cold since 1976. It has brought economic losses to the county, though specific data has not been released, Wang said.
