As autumn breezes arrive, the fruit stands across the island city display the green and translucent "Mingyue" apples, and the sweet aroma of roasted sweet potatoes on street corners gradually intensifies. For many longtime Qingdao residents, these flavors are both part of daily life and cherished memories. When stewing cabbage at home in winter, one always adds a handful of vermicelli; in the morning, brewing a cup of northern green tea emphasizes freshness and a sweet aftertaste. During the Mid-Autumn Festival when visiting relatives and friends, bringing a box of local apples is both presentable and warm. Now, these products imbued with rural charm have gained a new cultural annotation. Recently, the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau announced the third batch of agricultural heritage resource list, with a total of 9 traditional agricultural systems citywide making the cut. Three projects from the West Coast New Area—the Haiqing Tea Culture System, the Puli Sweet Potato Cultivation System, and the Baoshan Apple Cultivation System—were included in the public notice list, ranking first in the city by number of selections. Cao Yanxing from the Rural Social Affairs Promotion Section of the West Coast New Area Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau stated: "Protecting agricultural heritage is not about enshrining it, but letting it continue to grow on today's land." Behind these products commonly found on residents' dining tables are farming techniques passed down through generations. Today, old flavors and old techniques are continuing to be put to use in modern industries and rural life, deeply integrating with rural tourism and folk culture, allowing millennia-old farming wisdom to continue taking root in rural revitalization practices.

Puli Sweet Potato: A "Living Farming History" Grown in Sandy Soil

In Puli Town, West Coast New Area, Qingdao, the sandy loam soil in the transitional zone between coastal hills and plains is loose and breathable, with abundant sunlight resources, making it a suitable sweet potato cultivation area since ancient times. The cultivation history of the Puli Sweet Potato Cultivation System can be traced back to the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, over 270 years ago. According to the "Jiaonan County Annals," from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China period, sweet potato was always the most important food crop in the coastal villages of southern Jiaonan. In the 1960s, the Puli area innovatively promoted the "nest melon laying eggs" sweet potato cultivation technique, which was widely popularized throughout the province and became a landmark local farming technique in Shandong's sweet potato cultivation history. For longtime Qingdao residents, sweet potato is no stranger. In the past era of material scarcity, dried sweet potato was a storable ration, and vermicelli was a "hard dish" in winter stews. Today, autumn harvesting of sweet potatoes, cellar storage, acid slurry vermicelli making, and drying of sweet potato slices remain agricultural customs passed down through generations in Puli. Dried sweet potato and sweet potato vermicelli are both daily ingredients for ordinary people and special gifts for entertaining guests during festivals, and they coexist with local intangible cultural heritage such as Puli Maqiang opera and red mat weaving, precipitating a unique sweet potato farming culture with coastal characteristics of the West Coast. This system is not a static cultural relic on display, but a living agricultural system that continuously produces and creates economic value. As the core protection entity of agricultural cultural heritage, Qingdao Runze Agricultural Products Professional Cooperative is located in Puli Town, building a 1,000-mu sweet potato demonstration base, with contract planting radiating to 4,000 mu in surrounding villages. The cooperative balances the protection of local sweet potato germplasm resources, the inheritance of traditional farming techniques, and the development of modern agricultural industries, cultivating and introducing more than ten sweet potato varieties such as Jishu 25, Xu Zishu 8, and Durian Honey Sweet Potato, equipped with integrated water and fertilizer irrigation systems and storage and preservation facilities, extending the sweet potato deep processing industry chain, and developing a series of products including pure sweet potato vermicelli, vermicelli sheets, dried sweet potato, and purple sweet potato glutinous rice wine. After more than two hundred years of natural domestication and artificial selection, Puli has retained local old sweet potato varieties adapted to the local coastal sandy soil, possessing excellent characteristics such as tolerance to barren soil and resistance to local pests and diseases, making them an important component of the sweet potato germplasm resource bank. A complete knowledge system of sweet potato cultivation has been formed locally, from seedling raising, ridging, transplanting, vine lifting, harvesting to cellar storage. Sweet potato production runs through the four seasons of farming for Puli residents: spring seedling raising, summer and autumn field management, autumn harvest, winter cellar storage, and winter leisure vermicelli making, constituting a complete agricultural time sequence. Around sweet potato production, local harvest customs and distinctive food culture have emerged, integrating with Puli's local folk customs, Maqiang opera, and other cultural elements, carrying the collective farming memory of the southern West Coast villages. Today, the cooperative adopts the "Party branch + cooperative + farmers" order production model, driving surrounding farmers to participate in sweet potato cultivation and stabilizing farmers' planting income. Using industrial revenue to feed back into heritage protection, achieving coordinated development of agricultural cultural heritage protection, grain production, and farmer income increase, helping the construction of beautiful and harmonious villages.

Haiqing Tea: A Millennium Tea Lineage and "Upholding Tradition While Innovating"

If Puli sweet potato carries the weight of the soil, then Haiqing tea exudes sea breeze and mountain air. Haiqing Town in the West Coast New Area is located at the forefront of the golden tea-producing belt at 36° north latitude, on the shore of the Yellow Sea. It is the core carrying area for the millennium-continued northern tea cultural lineage and its modern-scale revival, known as the "Hometown of Chinese Famous Tea" and "Source of Northern Tea." The core thread of the Haiqing Tea Culture System is the complete historical chain of "millennium tea lineage inheritance + modern revival and innovation." According to historical records from the West Coast Library, "Haiqing" was originally a necessary post station from ancient Haizhou to Qingzhou, and Haiqing Town was an important post station on the north-south land and sea transportation route of the ancient Haiqing Road. It is said that as early as over 2,000 years ago, there were scattered tea gardens and tea trees in Haiqing; in the eighth year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi passed through Haiqing on his way to take up a post in Mizhou, and it is said that Haiqing tea was introduced from that time, with a history of at least a thousand years. "South Tea Introduced to the North" was the modern industrial activation of the millennium tea lineage, not the starting point of the system. In 1956, Haiqing Town was the first to respond to the introduction, trial planting 42 mu in the northern mountainous area, opening the exploration path of Haiqing tea cultivation. In 1966, Houhexi Village was the first to break through the technical bottleneck of tea tree overwintering; in 1968, Shandong Province's first tea factory—Haiqing Hexi Tea Factory—was completed, marking a key first step in the industrialization of northern tea. In Haiqing Town, tea is not only an industry but also a way of life. The annual spring "Guyu Harvest Ceremony" is a solemn ceremony expressing reverence for nature. The autumn "Haiqing Tea Culture Festival" is a tea culture event for all to participate in. Moreover, Haiqing has built and maintains the largest tea tree germplasm resource nursery in northern China with the most collected varieties, having introduced and preserved 48 tea tree variety resources including arbor type, small arbor type, and shrub type. This resource nursery is not only an "archive" of varieties but also an innovative "gene bank," providing an irreplaceable genetic resource foundation for subsequent tea tree breeding. Based on deep resources and scientific research, Haiqing Town has successfully cultivated and obtained 4 new tea tree varieties with national non-major crop variety registration certificates. The inheritance of Haiqing tea techniques is reflected in "upholding tradition while innovating." The local area strictly inherits and develops a set of core techniques for pan-fired green tea adapted to local raw materials: "spreading and airing—high-temperature fixation—multi-method shaping (grasping, pressing, pressing down, swinging)—segmented drying." On the other hand, through the "Digital Haiqing Tea" platform, a full industry chain traceability system is constructed, achieving deep integration of traditional "hand skills" and modern "intelligent management." Half of Haiqing Town's population is engaged in the tea industry, and the livelihoods and honors of tens of thousands of tea farmers are closely tied to the tea industry. Elderly tea master Li Chuancun has adhered to traditional techniques for over 40 years, "second-generation industry leader" Liu Hongmei promotes scale and branding, and "third-generation new farmer" Xia Jixiu explores smart agriculture and tea tourism integration. The entire town has formed a broad sense of identity and protection awareness, constituting the most fundamental and profound social foundation for the protection of the Haiqing tea system.

Baoshan Apple: "Mingyue" Lights Up the Mid-Autumn Fruit Plate

In Baoshan Town, West Coast New Area, apple cultivation began in 1955, with decades of deep history. Baoshan apples have won honors such as "Shandong Province High-Quality Apple" and "National Famous, Special, Excellent, and New Agricultural Product," and in 2018 won the National Geographical Indication Certification Trademark, being the first fruit category national-level geographical indication agricultural product in the West Coast New Area. "Mingyue" apple is the star product of Baoshan apples, introduced to Baoshan Town in 2003. In 2020, this variety won the "Gold Award" at the 21st China Green Food Expo, with its quality and taste highly praised in the industry. "Mingyue" apple has a regular shape, green skin, slightly yellow flesh, sweet and crisp, with an endless aftertaste, soluble solids content of no less than 15.0%, maximum sugar content up to 18%, rich in potassium, calcium, phosphorus and other trace elements, making it an ideal companion for a healthy diet. As an early-maturing variety, "Mingyue" apple usually ripens around the Mid-Autumn Festival, carrying the beautiful meaning of "the bright moon sends longing across a thousand miles," becoming the preferred gift for festivals. For longtime Qingdao residents, on fruit stands before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the green "Mingyue" apple is a regular on the fruit plate. Bringing a box of local apples when visiting relatives and friends not only echoes the reunion meaning of "Mingyue" but also allows one to taste the crispness of locally produced fruit.

News Extension: Qingdao Third Batch of Agricultural Heritage Resources Public Notice List

Reporters learned from the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau that, in accordance with the requirements of the "Notice on Carrying Out the Third Citywide Agricultural Heritage Resources Census and Application Work," after town (street) application, district (city) recommendation, and municipal-level review, 9 traditional agricultural systems including the "Chengyang Shaseyu Cherry Cultivation System" are proposed to be listed in Qingdao's third batch of agricultural heritage resources. The specific public notice list is as follows: Laoshan Dengying Ancient Pear Tree Group Cultural System; West Coast New Area Haiqing Tea Culture System; West Coast New Area Puli Sweet Potato Cultivation System; West Coast New Area Baoshan Apple Cultivation System; Chengyang Shaseyu Cherry Cultivation System; Jimo Wuqibu Chinese Cabbage Cultivation System; Pingdu Majiagou Celery Traditional Cultivation System; Laixi Xizhangzhaizi Hawthorn Cultivation System; Laixi Rizhuang Pear Tree Cultivation System.