Longjing tea, also known as West Lake Dragon Well tea, is a variety of pan-roasted green tea from Hangzhou. It has topped the list of the ten most famous teas in China and also because of this, some dishonest businessmen pass shoddy goods off real longjing tea. Due to this phenomenon, JD. com, Chinese e-commerce giant, has decided to use blockchain based supply chain data tracking tools to enhance the transparency and ensure the authenticity of Longjing tea.

March 28, the 2018 West Lack International Tea Culture Exposition opened in Hangzhou. The exposition was jointly hosted by Hangzhou Municipal Government, China International Tea Culture Institute, Brief Description on China Tea Science Society (CTSS) and JD. Com. It is also a opening ceremony which indicates arrival of this year’s spring teas.

As the unique e-commerce organizer for the tea ceremony, JD. com has sighed a strategic direct supply cooperation agreement with local outstanding tea merchants includes Lu Zhenghao Tea, Meifu Tea, Shifeng Tea and Gong Tea.

Lan Ye, the executive vice president and the chief director of public relationship of JD. Com, stated that “To those old-branded local tea merchants, JD. Com is the largest online selling channel.”

He also emphasized that JD. Com would support and protect the brand of ‘West Lake Dragon Well’ tea by enhancing the effectiveness of the business processes and guarantee the authenticity of  teas on their platform by using blockchain technology.

West Lake Dragon Well tea has is characterized by its green color, delicate aroma, mellow taste and beautiful leave shape. Dragon Well tea is very precious, a lot of dishonest tea merchant pass shoddy goods off the real one. The ‘fake’ longjing tea has been poured into the tea market, that’s quite disruptive and would lower costumer confidence in purchasing teas.

To deal with this problem, JD. Com established the “JD. Com Organic Tea Base” and integrates a blockchain based traceability system into an underwriting business model. Thus, the entire tea business process includes the picking, drying, frying, packaging and shipping process, would be supervised and managed under JD. Com’s security system.

Last week, JD also released a white paper detailing its new blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform which stated “JD is actively building and opening up its own BaaS platform in a bid to let the government, logistic industry, financial institutions and other enterprises to launch blockchain applications.”

JD has put so much efforts in blockchain to enhance traceability and safety for its goods, which makes it more competitive in the e-commerce market.