Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er

Prologue: The Tea Picker Above the Clouds

Before the sky is fully light, a sea of clouds pours over the ridgeline of Jingmai Mountain like a white ocean.

A Bulang woman, tea basket on her arm, steps through the dew into the old tea forest. There are no neat rows of tea here — the trees are scattered among the great trees, tall and short, some taller than a person. She reaches out and takes two leaves and a bud from a branch as high as herself.

Mornings like this one have come to this mountain for more than a thousand years.

The Testament of the Tea Ancestor

In the Tang dynasty, more than a thousand years ago, the Bulang tell how their ancestor Pa Ai Leng led the tribe to Jingmai Mountain, taught the people to clear the slopes and plant tea, and left this testament: “Gold and silver you may leave behind, and in time they will run out; cattle and horses you may leave behind, and in time they will die; but leave the tea seed, and your descendants will draw on it endlessly, and it will never fail.”

Bulang ancestors introduced and domesticated tea trees on Jingmai Mountain, beginning understorey tea growing — and tea became the root of the Bulang people’s very existence.

The legend may not be verifiable, but one thing is certain: more than a thousand years later, those tea trees are still alive.

The Wisdom of Growing Tea Under the Forest

Between the 10th and 14th centuries, extensive ancient tea forests took shape on the Jingmai and Mangjing mountains — and they survive to this day.

The old tea forests of Jingmai are not pruned and not fertilised. Tall evergreen trees shade the tea; the tea grows naturally “under the forest”; herbs and moss hold the soil and water — canopy, tea trees and herbs in three storeys, tea and forest surviving together for over a thousand years.

This is not careless neglect, but wisdom tested by time: the forest is the tea’s umbrella, and the tea is the forest’s guest. The thousand-year-old, ten-thousand-mu ancient tea forest surviving on Jingmai is among the best-preserved old tea forests in the world.

2023: A Cup of Tea Becomes World Heritage

In 2023, the Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er was inscribed under criteria (iii) and (v) — the world’s first World Heritage property themed on tea culture.

The villages of the Bulang and Dai peoples, the old tea forests and the worship of the tea ancestor together form a living heritage in which “the mountain shelters the forest, the forest grows the tea, and the tea nourishes the people.” This is no specimen under glass — it is a mountain that still harvests tea, still holds festivals, still honours its ancestor. Tea has nourished the people for a thousand years; the people have guarded the tea for a thousand years.

Epilogue: The Same Sea of Clouds, a Thousand Years Later

The morning sea of clouds has rolled over the ridgeline once more.

A tea picker is still bending among the trees; the tea trees still stand in the shade of the giants. Perhaps the kin of Pa Ai Leng planted their first tea on just such a morning, a thousand years ago; and a thousand years later, the buds still turn green each spring, and the hands that pick them are still gentle.

The mountain is the same mountain, the tea the same tea — and the saying “the mountain shelters the forest, the forest grows the tea, and the tea nourishes the people” has been spoken to the world by this mountain, over a thousand years.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• Criterion (iii): The old tea forests bear witness to the continuity of a thousand-year tea culture among the Bulang, Dai and other peoples.
• Criterion (v): The distinctive understorey tea-growing land use is an outstanding example of harmonious coexistence between mountain peoples and forest.

Facts at a Glance

• The old tea forests have endured for over a thousand years; the world’s first tea-themed World Heritage
• Inscribed in 2023; the core area lies in Lancang county, Pu’er, Yunnan