| Pu'er Tea Culture |
Ancient Tea Caravan Ways |
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Ethnic ways of Tea Consumption ¡¡
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It¡¯s
difficult to find out how early the first
tea trade was achieved, the earliest ethnic planters started growing tea
only for their own consumption at very beginning, but one thing was
certain, trade accelerated development of tea planting and subsequently
turned it into a big industry. In fragmental history records, rough
information was delivered, as early as in Tang Dynasty, tea from Yunnan
already became indispensable merchandise in Tibetan people¡¯s life,
that¡¯s about 1200 years ago. As tea trade boomed, a huge network of tea
transporting routes gradually shaped up, they were the main channels
through which that tea could be transported to the final markets from
production area. Ancient Tea Caravan Way, it¡¯s how people call it today.
According to research carried out by historians, since Tang Dynasty when
tea trade was historically recorded first time, early or later there were
totally 5 exportation routes radiating from Pu¡¯er, the former
distribution center of Pu¡¯er tea, in different directions as northwest,
northeast, south, southeast and southwest.
Among
all exporting routes, northwest route was the most important one, as well
reputed for the longest history. This transportation course connected
Tibet, the biggest Pu¡¯er Tea consumption market with the distribution
center and even the production center. From of old, beef, mutton and dairy
produce had always been the main food of Tibetan people, due to shortage
of vegetables, heavy greasiness and high protein contained within food,
it¡¯s necessary to drink a lot of tea to get body refreshed, in their
menu, tea was same important as main food. Nobody knows from what time
Tibetan people began to drink tea, but intermarriages between Tang Dynasty
and Tibet during 7th Century and 8th Century
enhanced prevalence of tea consumption in Tibetan area, as a result of
intercommunication between two nationalities, tea-drinking tradition of
Tang was introduced in, syncretized with indigenous dietetic habits,
finally turned into a conventional part of local people¡¯s life. On one
hand, tea was a necessary to Tibetan people, on the other hand, Tibet was
a place without any tea plant, in this case, Yunnan, especially southern
Yunnan where tea abounded, in the nature of things became the common
destination of Tibetan caravans, with horses¡¯ hoofs and own feet they
treaded out the first tea caravan way in history. Along this route, big
quantity of Tibetan horses, dairy produce, herbal medicine, animal furs
and other goods were brought to Pu¡¯er, then in exchange a mass of tea
was taken back, for very long period, Tibetan caravans had been the most
welcome customers on the tea market of Pu¡¯er.
Lofty
mountains, big rivers, deep canyons, dense forest and changeable climate
in Yunnan and Tibet determined tea transportation was an extremely hard
and dangerous trip. Normally caravans got on back way from Pu¡¯er after
collecting needed goods, but for sake of more profit, some caravans even
went further in south across rainforest to Six Tea Mountains or Yi Wu
where tea was produced for purchase, then started northward home journey
there. Up in north, across Pu¡¯er area, via Dali area and Lijiang area,
caravans entered Diqing area along the upriver Yangtze, then followed
upriver Mekong into Changdu area of Tibet, Changdu was the most important
town in eastern Tibet, it¡¯s where tea caravan way from Yunnan converged
with another caravan route from Chengdu in Sichuan. After short rest,
caravans would continue their travel, all the way up in northwest and
finally arrived in Lasha, the center of Tibet, as well the eternal home in
these travelers¡¯ hearts. Most caravans finished their long trek in Lasha,
and would spend a relaxing period to enjoy reunion with family, to dispose
of goods they took back or to plan next business trip again, but for a few
caravans, Lasha was only a stopover, their destinations were set further
away beyond Himalayas, in Nepal or even in India. From Pu¡¯er to Lasha,
It¡¯s a long way over 3000 kilometers and full of hardships, uninhabited
areas accounted for most part of journey, normally to accomplish this trip
would take more than 3 months, besides torturing tediousness on endless
trail, viatic ruggedness, unexpected illness, aggressive animals,
atrocious weather and ferocious bandit gangs all were what caravans had to
face and overcome on the way. Due to danger in company through whole trip,
loss of horses and goods happened very often, sometimes even personnel
casualty was also a cruel result caravan people had to accept. Right along
such a trail, by a gang of people like this, through hard work year after
year in most primitive way, Pu¡¯er Tea began to be introduced to the
world.
The
trade between Pu¡¯er and Tibet greatly promoted the production of Tea, as
the yield of tea in south Yunnan got bigger and quality was getting
higher, Pu¡¯er Tea gained so good reputation that even the emperors of
Qing Dynasty more than 200 years ago appointed it as a yearly tributary
item, concomitantly booming tea business brought considerable tax which
government couldn¡¯t neglect, under this circumstance northeast Tea
Caravan Way came into being and gradually became the busiest tea
transporting route away from Pu¡¯er. Compared with northwest Tea Caravan
Way, northeast route was much shorter, from tea production areas, Six Tea
Mountains or Yi Wu area to distribution center, Pu¡¯er, then via Yu Xi
area to Kunming, the administrative capital of Yunnan, total mileage was
around 800 kilometers and took approximately 3 weeks. Because this route
was more an official one and specially shouldering the landline of
tributary tea, great importance was attached to it by both government and
businessmen, the regions that route crossed were more populated, board and
lodging conditions on the way were better, additionally, in order to
guarantee the safety of tributary tea and other taxpaying trade,
government set up a lot of sentry posts and stationed quite many
battalions along the route, these made the tea transportation trip up in
northeast contrastively easier and safer than in northwest. What was more,
for ensuring smooth and punctual arrival of tributary tea, from 1821,
government and businessmen began to jointly invest for a project that
could be great even in today, to pave whole trail with slabstones,
construction lasted 30 years and finally finished in 1850, the betterment
of traffic conditions effectively speeded up circulation of merchandises,
more tea could be exported through this channel, Pu¡¯er Tea industry
entered its most flourishing period in the history.
Pu¡¯er
Tea was named after Pu¡¯er, in reverse Pu¡¯er got well-known because of
Pu¡¯er Tea, it was the result of thriving tea trade in Ming Dynasty and
Qing Dynasty, as political center of south Yunnan with most tea producing
areas under its administration, Pu¡¯er deservedly acted the role of tea
trade center at that time. Grand city wall was built around town,
merchants from different provinces assembled and established their own
chambers of commerce one after the other, diversified culture mixed,
various shops offered customers abundant choices, even the night market
was opened¡.Pu¡¯er developed into a prosperous commercial center of
south Yunnan. Drastic competition was what had always been going with
prosperity of certain industry, same rule for tea trade, high profit
attracted more and more people to enter tea business but at the same time
market competition was intensified, in order to seek bigger markets,
caravans had to start exploring in the south, across Southeast Asia
Peninsular and toward the extensive ocean, Southeast Tea Caravan Way,
South Tea Caravan Way and Southwest Tea Caravan Way were the outcome of
exploration in this period. These caravan routes set up a bridge between
Pu¡¯er and boundless sea, from Haiphong of Vietnam, Bangkok of Thailand
and Rangoon of Myanmar, Pu¡¯er tea was ceaselessly shipped out to wider
world, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, West Asia and even Europe¡
Since
1200 years ago, along the first Tea Caravan Way the first batch of tea
products was transported out of Pu¡¯er, during different periods in
history, there had always been different Tea Caravan Ways playing the main
roles in exportation of Pu¡¯er Tea, Ancient Tea Caravan Ways acted as not
only a propeller to push Pu¡¯er Tea industry forward, but also a witness
of its ebb and flow. In late 19th Century, insurgence started in Dali area
inflicted serious impact on tea trade and production in Pu¡¯er area, it
brought Pu¡¯er a 5-year long chaos and stagnancy, in 1937, French
colonists closed Lao border and Vietnamese border with China, this
situation obstructed tea exportation to Haiphong or Bangkok in south, in
1940s, Burma was occupied by Japanese troops, tea transporting courses to
Rangoon or other places via Burma were cut off, too¡these reasons
directly caused retrogression of tea industry in South Yunnan, in such
years rife with turmoil of war, tea caravan ways lost customary bustle and
liveliness. As modern traffic networks were built and extended to the most
remote frontier regions of country in 1950s, Ancient Tea Caravan Ways
finally finished missions and step by step quitted the historical
stage, busy hoofbeats and ringing of horse bells in former days gradually
turned into a piece of blurry memory in people¡¯s mind.
Time
passed and the world changed, seems within only one blink more than half
century has elapsed, Ancient Tea Caravan Ways passed into silence and have
got really far from us, either been replaced by modern highways,
enshrouded by exuberant forests, or just disappeared owing to reasons of
both nature and human. Nowadays, only at some remote places can people
still see part caravan trails paved with slabstones winding its way on
mountain ridges, it¡¯s difficult to relate the current desolation with busy
traffic in bygone days, though hoofprints deeply engraved on stones from
repeated stepping through centuries are still telling about the former
splendor of this route. Like an old man, who accomplished obligation and retired from
busyness, now is enjoying peaceful days for rest of life away from worldly
hubbub. Ancient Tea Caravan Ways only belong to the past. |
