The Development of Local Tea Product to Promote Community based Tourism in Ban Pong Nam Ron, Doi Hang Sub-District, Muang District, Chiangrai Province

Abstract

The aims of this study were: 1) to study the local wisdom in producing black tea based on the traditional method with an aim to integrate with tourism activities of the community; 2) to examine the practical production process in producing black tea based on the traditional method to meet with the community product standard (CPS.120/2006); 3) to investigate the consumers’ acceptability of the black tea production based on the traditional method; and 4) to explore the approach to integrate the black tea production based on the traditional method into the tourism activity of Pong Nam Ron community, Moo 7, Doi Hang sub-district, Muang district, Chiang Rai province. This research employed an action-based community participatory approach using in-depth interview, focus-group discussion, experiment on producing the black tea based-on the traditional method, and examination of the acceptability.
The findings showed that the participatory process led the researchers to understand problems in the community, learned from the issues and developed the knowledge from fieldwork, undertook research activities, analyzed the key issues and sought an approach to produce the products for tourism promotion. This process was the focal point in community development, that was, human development. Examination of the community product for the black tea, the findings showed that the physical attributes of the tea, color, smell, taste, distillation by boiling water, extraneous items, colorization, humid, caffeine index, and microorganism were reported at the high level based on the community product standard CPS120/2006 by Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TSI). Examination of the consumers’ acceptability, the overall opinion of the consumers indicated the high level of satisfaction due to the fact that, along with tasting the tea, there was an explanation of the production process of black tea based on the traditional method together with the exhibition of the mock-up displaying the traditional production process. Therefore, if the community would like to have the black tea produced by the traditional method favored by the consumers, the concentration must be placed into the cultural aspect of the product that made the product more admirable, impressive, and stimulating the learning experience of the consumer. Like this, it would make the product more valuable and worthy. Regarding the development of the black tea for tourism promotion purpose, the production process of the product must be unique and allow the participation of the tourists to directly feel and get involved with the production process. So, the tourists would gain the novel experience and feel the pride. Emphasizing on participation of the community, the development should also focus on the media for public relation and the literacy to enable the people to keep up the pace with the tourism updates and movements. Regarding production of the black tea, the production site must be improved to meet with the community production standard as well as the black tea package must be redesigned to be more modern and attractive for the consumers.