Taishun's "rice paddy cafes" - an intriguing sight in autumn

Amid 1.7 acres of golden rice paddies, adjacent to rolling green hills, and with the unique and freshly ground“Sanbeixiang” coffee, the rice paddy cafes ingeniously created by local youth under the support of the Yayang Town in Taishun County quickly gained popularity when opened, drawing tens of thousands of visitors from both inside and outside Zhejiang Province during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays. They set the local agricultural leisure tourism market ablaze with success.

“Rice paddies, coffee, and the backdrop of blue skies and white clouds are photogenic and conform to the aesthetic preferences of our younger generation. That’s why a group of us specifically embarked on a road trip from Shouning, Fujian Province, to visit here.” Situated in the Dong’an Village Ecological Tourism Park in Yayang Town, the“Lan’s” Paddy Field Cafe opened a week before the National Day. At the beginning of its operation, numerous visitors from various places came to enjoy the experience. During an interview, Ms. Wang and her friends from Shouning shared some of the compelling reasons behind the cafe’s appeal.

The“Lan’s” Rice Field Cafe was established by the couple of He Weiwei, who are  born after 1995 with a passion for coffee culture in Taishun. Prior to launching the paddy field cafe, the couple had recognized the surging tourism appeal and ample tourism resources in Yayang Town, and had already achieved entrepreneurial success in another ancient village in the town, Tatoudi Village. Last year, they quit their jobs in the city to open a trendy cafe in Tatoudi, serving coffee and Western-style desserts. He Weiwei explained that the team is well-versed in the rules of internet communication and is familiar with the beautiful natural landscapes of Yayang. Each time before and after the cafe’s opening, the team would share aesthetically pleasing videos on platforms like Douyin and WeChat, often garnering hundreds of thousands of views.

Taishun is a National Ecological County with abundant tourism resources. Yayang, the home of Taishun’s radon spring, is situated in the core area of the Roofed Lounge Bridge-Radon Spring National Tourism Resort. Leveraging these unique resources, the town focuses on constructing agritourism scenarios where“the youth thrive, eco-friendliness is visible, and prosperity is shared”. Yayang has completed four boutique tourist projects, such as Tatoudi Hot Spring Ancient Village, and established two high-quality tourist routes: the Roofed Lounge Bridge-Radon Spring and Radon Spring-Yunlan Ranch routes. As a result, its number of tourists received and the comprehensive economic output value of tourism have maintained a high growth rate of over 30% for several consecutive years, which, in turn, has become a prerequisite for attracting young people to return to their hometowns for entrepreneurial opportunities.

To support the youth in starting their businesses and further boost the work of village revitalization, Yayang Town has implemented a“one-to-one” support system for landing projects. It focuses on converting dry land to irrigated paddy fields, repurposing idle farmhouses, and addressing a series of issues such as land requisition for parking lots, industrial road construction, and comprehensive water and electricity infrastructure. To ensure that“youth-related matters take precedence and receive immediate assistance”, the town has rallied the government, villages and local talent, and mobilized CPC members and cadres to establish a traffic maintenance volunteer service team, so as to ensure orderly crowds and traffic flow in the bustling popular spots.(ZhongXin)