Tea, known as the “Chinese leaf that influenced the world,” spread from China to the rest of the world via the Silk Road, the Tea Horse Road, the Great Tea Route, and the Maritime Silk Road. It has become the most popular non-alcoholic beverage in the world, enjoyed by over 2 billion people across more than 160 countries and regions.
Arccheological sites prove that China has over 6,000 years of tea cultivation history, with famous tea-producing areas with a long history formed throughout the country.
So why has Jingmai Mountain become the first global tea-themed World Cultural Heritage site?
Because Jingmai Mountain itself is a living book of “Chinese Tea” history.
Jingmai Mountain is located on the southwestern frontier in the Lancang River Basin of Yunnan Province. It boasts the best-preserved ancient tea forests in the world's tea tree origin, spanning thousands of acres and thousands of years. It is a living museum of human Tea culture, created by the Bulang ancestors who migrated to Jingmai Mountain in the 10th century and discovered and domesticated tea trees, along with the later Dai ancestors.
“Five ancient tea forests, nine traditional villages, and three protective forests” are the heritage elements of the ancient tea forests of Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er. They also serve as tangible evidence and typical representatives of the traditional understorey tea planting method that was preserved until today before the widespread adoption of modern tea plantation techniques.
The land utilization techniques, village construction techniques, and other traditional knowledge systems tailored to local conditions have ensured the stable development of the local socio-economy for over a thousand years, creating a sustainable mountainous human habitat.
Jingmai Mountain can be roughly divided into the northeast Bai Xiang Mountain, which runs east-west and is home to the Dai villages of Jingmai Daizhai, Mengben, and Manggeng at its northern foot; the northwest Nuogang Mountain, which runs northwest-southeast, and the Dai village of Nuogang located in the mountain hollow at the foot of Nuogang Mountain; and the south Mangjing Mountain, also known as Ai Leng Mountain, running north-south, with five Bulang villages distributed along its western slope.
No later than the 10th century, the descendants of the Pu people, the Bulang ancestors, had already migrated to Jingmai Mountain and started discovering, domesticating, and cultivating ancient tea trees, which continues to this day, over a thousand years. In the 14th century, during the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, the Dai people began to enter Lancang and arrived at Jingmai Mountain.
(Photography by Tan Chun)
There were wild tea trees growing on Jingmai Mountain before the Bulang people arrived.
Although no wild ancient tea trees have been found on Jingmai Mountain so far, ancient tea trees with four styles in their pistils have been discovered in the ancient tea forests of Mangjing Mountain. These could possibly be the hybrid offspring of the wild Dali tea and Pu'er tea, providing evidence that wild tea species once grew here.
The ancient tea gardens of Jingmai Mountain are mainly distributed on the slopes between 1,250 and 1,550 meters above sea level, around the villages, and within the forests.
(Photography by Liu Jianming)
According to sample plot surveys, the density of tea trees in the ancient tea forests of Jingmai Mountain exceeds 1,000 per hectare (1 hectare = 15 mu), with most ancient tea trees ranging in height from 2 to 5 meters, and some larger ones reaching nearly 12 meters.
The ancient tea gardens can be roughly divided into five well-preserved ancient tea gardens: Manggeng-Mengben and Jingmai Daizhai on Bai Xiang Mountain, Nuogang on Nuogang Mountain, and Upper and Lower Mangjing, Manghong, and Wengji Wengwa on Mangjing Mountain, covering a total area of approximately 17,700 mu.
The most famous ancient tea forest on Jingmai Mountain is Dapingzhang.
Dapingzhang is located in the southern mountains of Jingmai Daizhai. This is a relatively flat and open basin, serving as a typical representative of the ancient tea forests of the Dai people of Jingmai Mountain.
This 3,000-mu ancient tea garden, characterized by higher terrain around it and lower in the middle, has good light and water conditions, dense forests, and ancient tea trees.
Surveys show that within a 1-hectare sample plot in the Dapingzhang ancient tea garden, there are 1,718 plants of various types, including 1,585 tea trees, accounting for 92.3% of the total number of plants, and 133 trees of 25 species such as Polyalthia, Schima, Gordonia, and Chinese persimmon.
The Dapingzhang ancient tea garden also grows the tea god tree worshipped by the Dai people, as well as more than ten ancient Cassia trees over 30 meters tall, all of which reflect the long history of the tea garden.
Different from other ancient tea gardens, Jingmai Mountain has developed a combined ancestral worship and nature worship called the “tea ancestor faith.” The strong ethnic identity with the “tea ancestor” enhances the collective identity and behavioral awareness of the resident ethnic groups in protecting the ancient tea forests.
In Jingmai Mountain, tea planting and tea picking exist not as a means of production but as a form of faith, a harmonious way of life coexisting with nature. More importantly, this way of life is dynamic, inheritable, and sustainable, possessing universal value worldwide.
(Photography by Tan Chun)
It can be said that the cultural landscape of the ancient tea forests of Jingmai Mountain creates a harmonious mountainous human habitat between humans and the earth, between people, and between humans and gods, bringing inspiration to multicultural coexistence and sustainable development in China and even the present-day world.
Therefore, only by expanding the perspective to the global level and becoming a World Heritage site highlighting values that influence the world, can the ancient tea forests of Jingmai Mountain achieve the important value and significance of becoming a World Cultural Heritage site.
Author|Duan Zhaoshun
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