A farmer at the tea garden in Ningbo's Zhenhai district shows international students how to pick tea leaves on March 22. [Photo/Xinhua]

More than ten international students from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China picked tea leaves and tasted tea at a garden in Ningbo's Zhenhai district on March 22.

The tea garden in Jiulonghu town of Zhenhai district is one of Ningbo's major tea producing locations. Embraced by green hills on three sides, it has a one-kilometer planting area and produces about seven and a half tons of tea annually.

The students, from different countries including India, Mexico and the United States, showed strong interest in China's profound tea culture. With the guidance of local farmers, they learned how to pick tea leaves, concentrating on searching for tender shoots when walking among the trees.

To have a deeper understanding of one of China's native cultures, some of the students even wore traditional clothes of the country's Han people when learning to make a cup of tea.

Zhou Lin, chairman of an association on promotion of Han culture in Ningbo, appreciated the foreigners' active participation in tea cultural activities in recent years. She said, "Inviting young people from other countries to feel the tea culture closely is a new way to facilitate the culture's internationalization."