Rural companies can easily understand how their products can be developed to generate more profit and marketed direct to end buyers. However, the average guy on the street around here just cannot figure out what our company does, though. There are very strong preconceptions of what resources they have and what resources have the strongest potential. All they seem to talk about is "tea oil."
I have never been too keen on trying to develop what locals call "tea oil" because (having never heard of it) I doubted its use outside the local area, but tea oil is most certainly the big resource locals expect our company to help develop. It has nothing to do with tea bushes or tea we drink, but comes from a completely different bush (tree) altogether. The folks around here sing its praises. I tend to wonder if there is a decent product worth development or not.
What in Chinese is called "tea oil" or "tea seed oil" is often called "Camellia oil" in English, and comes from the Camellia oleifera shrub or the "Tea-Oil Camellia." It seems the common name (using tea, oil, seed, etc) makes it easy to confuse with other plants and oils: this is not tea leaves like the tea we drink, and this is not the tea tree oil of Australia. Now, after saying this is different from drinking tea, I should back up a little and say that the Answers.com site suggests tea oil can also come from the seeds of the regular tea plant (Camellia sinensis), but around here, tea oil only comes from the Camellia oleifera.
So, what is tea oil? What is tea oil used for? Good question. Around here, it is a cooking oil. If you get into the herbal, all-natural, medicinal kind of thing, Camellia Tea Oil is just for you. It is supposed to prevent diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary disease, plus it has antioxidants which supposedly help fight cancer. Now, I am no chemist or doctor; that is just what I heard. As a cooking oil, it leaves a lighter oil taste and less odor than other cooking oils.
Evidentally, our county is somewhat well-known for producing Camellia Tea Oil. With more than 45,000 hectares (460 square km) of Camellia sinensis growing, the county's annual production exceeds 3,500 metric tons (mt). One of the major investments made in our county was into a nut crushing factory. This manufacturing plant processes 20,000mt of nuts per year, producing 4,500mt of high grade tea oil (in addition to 10,000mt of some kind of compressed cakes, 4,100mt of tea soap, 1,500mt of organic charcoal, and 275mt of "soap foot"...whatever that is).
Since our company has only recently become aware of some of the potential of Camellia Tea Oil in non-Chinese markets, we are only beginning to find some of the potential buyers as well. Feel free to contact us if you seek to locate a new and possibly cheaper source of Camellia Tea Oil.
Sorry, I stated above that a tea oil crushing factory was established in this county and gave some statistics. The statistics are correct, but are actually an investment opportunity. The government would like to see a factory set up to crush the tea oil nuts and create all those products. Right now, all the county has are small producers with a low and inefficient yield.
I talk more about the change from "invested" to "investment opportunity" in a later entry, which is titled "What Investment Opportunities Lie in Rural China?".
Posted by: Cooper Strange | 13 Jan 2007 at 17:56