Yuancun

　　Shangyou County’s Meishui Township Yuancun Village is situated by the national 4A-level forest park — Doushui Lake, 14 kilometers from the county seat. The area has rich mountain resources. The county has a total of 180,000 mu of mountainous land, with a forest coverage rate of 87.2%, 199,600 mu of forested land, and 40,600 mu of bamboo forests. The village itself covers 13,000 mu of mountainous land and 912 mu of arable land. Surrounded by rolling hills, Yuancun features beautiful tea plantation scenery and lies along the Shangtai route. It is close to the Jingming Resort. Nestled among mountains, one can overlook the entire village from a vantage point in the hills. Its circular shape has earned it the name “Yuancun” (Round Village).

　　Yuancun is a well-known tea specialty village with well-preserved ecology and high forest coverage. It highlights its strengths such as being the No. 1 Village of Hakka Door Plaques, a tea industry specialty village, the Nine-Bend Eco Rafting experience, the millennia-old paper-making workshop, and the best-preserved forest miniature railway in China. Especially this year, over 6 million yuan has been invested to comprehensively upgrade the Nine-Bend Eco Rafting, striving to develop Yuancun into a rural tourism destination integrating sightseeing, history exploration, immersive experiences, and amusement. In 2010, Yuancun was recognized as a “Provincial-Level Rural Tourism Demonstration Site.”

　　In terms of the tea industry, the village has built premium tea gardens, a tea museum, and tea tasting gardens, forming an integrated industry chain encompassing tea cultivation, planting, picking, processing, tasting, and tea art performances. This allows visitors to admire the tea plantations while immersing themselves in the charm of tea culture, making them linger with delight. Currently, Yuancun in Meishui sees a continuous stream of tourists visiting its tea gardens. While expanding and strengthening the tea industry, the village continues to explore the cultural essence of tea and Hakka traditions. Leveraging its unique natural resources, it vigorously develops tea sightseeing and experiential tourism, extending the tea industry chain. The village has newly built a tea art performance center, tea garden walking trails, viewing platforms, and formed a Hakka tea art performance team, initially creating an experiential tourism project that combines tea picking, tea processing, tea tasting, tea cuisine, and tea art performances.

　　Currently, the scenic area spans over 1,200 mu and offers leisure activities including the Yuancun Green Tea Tasting House, Nine-Bend River Rafting, Dongkeng Paper-Making Workshop, recreational fishing ponds, the forest miniature railway, and farm stay dining. It has been honored as a “Jiangxi Eco-New Countryside” and a “Jiangxi Province Rural Tourism Demonstration Site.”