Ancient tea route
Encyclopedia
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
Province in Southwest China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. It is also referred to as the Southern Silk Road and Tea and Horse Road. From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
-producing regions: to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
via Burma; to Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
; and to central China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
via Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
. People and horses carried heavy loads.
It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea brick
Tea brick
Tea bricks or compressed tea are blocks of whole or finely ground black tea, green tea, or post-fermented tea leaves that have been packed in molds and pressed into block form...
s) first spread across China and Asia from its origins in Pu'er county, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
.
The route earned the name Tea-Horse Road because of the common trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea, a practice dating back at least to the Song dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
, when the sturdy horses were important for China to fight warring nomads in the north.
See also
- Jeff FuchsJeff FuchsJeff Fuchs is a noted explorer, mountaineer and writer. He gained prominence with his successful bid to become the first westerner to trek the entire Yunnan-Tibet Ancient Tea Horse Road, stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas and a dozen cultures, documented in the book The...
- Pu-erh teaPu-erh teaPu'er, Pu-erh, Puer, also Po Lei or Bolay is a variety of post-fermented tea produced in Yunnan province, China. Post-fermentation is a tea production style in which the tea leaves undergo a microbial fermentation process after they are dried and rolled. This is a Chinese specialty and is sometimes...
- Shaxi, YunnanShaxi, YunnanShaxi is a historical market town in Jianchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan province, China.The town is located roughly in between Dali and Lijiang....
: a well preserved historical trading town in Jianchuan County on the ancient tea route - Siberian RouteSiberian RouteThe Siberian Route , also known as the Moscow Route and Great Route , was a historic route that connected European Russia to Siberia and China. Previously Siberian transport had been mostly by river via Siberian River Routes...
- Silk RoadSilk RoadThe Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...
External links
- China’s ‘Ancient Tea-Horse Road’ in Historical Perspective, Andrew Forbes and David Henley
- Silk Road Foundation - An authoritative article about the ancient tea route by Yang Fuquan, director of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences
- Documentary: Insight on Asia - Asian Corridor in Heaven - Made by KBS tv Program
- Tea Horse Road - National Geographic Magazine
- "The Tea Horse Road", Jeff FuchsJeff FuchsJeff Fuchs is a noted explorer, mountaineer and writer. He gained prominence with his successful bid to become the first westerner to trek the entire Yunnan-Tibet Ancient Tea Horse Road, stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas and a dozen cultures, documented in the book The...
, The Silk Road, Vol.6, No.1 (Winter 2008) - Interview: Jeff Fuchs, Kokunming, August 11, 2010.
- Bob Rogers and Claire Rogers, "Traveling Today's Tea Horse Road", Desert Leaf magazine, February 2011