Mengla Pu'er Tea

Mengla Pu'er Tea

　　   Mengla Pu'er Tea is a specialty of Mengla County in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Mengla County is one of the main production areas of Pu'er tea, and Yiwu Township is one of the townships with the largest area of ancient tea gardens in Mengla County and even the entire prefecture.

　　   In the Dai language, "Mengla" means "land of tea." Mengla has a long history of tea planting and is one of the birthplaces of large-leaf tea varieties. As early as the 8th century during the Tang Dynasty, Fan Chuo wrote in the *Manshu* ("Book of the Southern Barbarians"): “Tea comes from the mountains around the territory of the Silver Moon City, gathered in small amounts without fixed methods of picking or processing.” The “Silver Moon City” refers to the region governed by the Nanzhao-established “Kainan Yincheng Circuit,” and the “mountains around the Silver Moon City” refer to the vast tea-growing areas including Jingdong, Jinggu, Pu'er, and the tea mountains southward in Xishuangbanna. By the end of the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty (around 1620), Xie Zhaozhe first mentioned “Pu'er tea” in his book *Dianlüe* (“Brief Account of Yunnan”): “The common people all use Pu tea, which is steamed and pressed into cakes.” Pu’er was the tea distribution hub at that time, and the “mountains around the Silver Moon City” were all under the jurisdiction of Pu’er Prefecture, hence the name “Pu'er tea.” By the mid-Qing Dynasty, Pu'er tea had gained fame both domestically and internationally through extensive trade. The exact origin of Pu'er tea cultivation was accurately recorded by Qing dynasty scholar Tan Chui in *Dianhai Yuheng Zhi* (“Records of Yunnan’s Maritime and Mountain Resources”): “The six tea mountains under Pu’er jurisdiction are: first, Youle; second, Gedeng; third, Yibang; fourth, Bengzhi; fifth, Manduan; sixth, Mansa, spanning a total of 800 li.” The same account appears in *Pu'er Tea Examination* by Ruan Fu of the Qing Dynasty. Volume 19 of *Pu'er Prefecture Annals*, titled *Food and Goods Chapter Six – Products: Tea*, also states: “Pu tea is renowned throughout the world, produced in the six tea mountains under Pu’er jurisdiction.” Apart from Youle—today’s Jinghong County—the other five tea mountains are all located in the Xiangming and Yiwu areas of Mengla County. In 1957, Jiang Quan, director of the Tea Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, provided a more precise identification of the “six tea mountains”—Mansa, Yiwu, Manzhuan, Yibang, Gedeng, and Youle—in his work *A Visit to the Six Great Tea Mountains*. Historical texts vary in place names due to the rise and fall of the tea trade, but there is no doubt that the six tea mountains are the production sites of the world-renowned “Pu'er tea.”

　　   Mengla County is one of the main production areas of Pu'er tea. It borders Laos to the east and south, Myanmar to the west, and is not far from Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Therefore, over the past several centuries, Mengla has been both a base for Pu'er tea production and a key transit point for Pu'er tea heading to Southeast Asia. Yiwu served as an important distribution hub for the tea produced in the six great tea mountains destined for Southeast Asia, and was established as “Liyicheng” (Profit City) during the Tang Dynasty’s Zhenyuan era (794 AD) under the Nanzhao Kingdom.

　　   According to a survey by the Mengla County Tea Association, Yiwu Township is one of the townships with the largest area of ancient tea gardens in Mengla County and even the entire prefecture. Currently, the township has ancient tea gardens covering an area of 20,000 mu. Yiwu Township boasts valuable natural and cultural heritage. The traditional production techniques of Pu'er tea, represented by the “Seven Sons Cake Tea,” have been passed down to this day. The area also preserves hundreds of miles of ancient Tea Horse Road, as well as stone carvings, stone inscriptions, stone tablets, wooden plaques, and a significant number of official documents related to tea from the early Republican period. A wealth of physical artifacts associated with Pu'er tea has been accumulated here.