China’s ‘Ancient Tea-Horse Road’ in Historical Perspective

Part of Trade Routes

The antique Silk Road that connected the Chinese and Mediterranean Worlds for more than a millennium, facilitating the exchange of both goods and cultures, is widely known and celebrated. Less familiar is its more southerly equivalent, the ‘Ancient Tea-Horse Road’ that once linked the lush gardens of southwest China with the frigid wastelands of Tibet and – beyond – the torrid plains of northern India. The latter is also sometimes called the ‘Southern Silk Road’, though this is something of a misnomer, as silk seems never to have played a very important part in the traffic that travelled along it.

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Frontiers of Tang China c. 700 AD

By contrast, the name ‘Tea-Horse Road’ is both appropriately descriptive, and of considerable antiquity. In this there are clear contrasts with the more northerly Silk Road, which was never known by that name to Chinese annalists of the distant past; rather the designation is thought to have been coined by a German geographer, Ferdinand von Richthofen, as recently as 1877. Again by contrast, the name ‘Tea-Horse Road’ – in Chinese chamadao – was in official use from at least the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The addition of the word gu or ‘ancient’, making the currently popular name chama gudao or ‘Ancient Tea-Horse Road’ is a much more recent, and even near-contemporary, designation.

Also unlike the Silk Road, which followed a relatively well defined route for much of its length, the Tea-Horse Road was more of a skein of tracks, a network of paths and passages both difficult and diverse, that passed through the immensely difficult terrain of western Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet and Qinghai, over some of the highest, coldest and most inhospitable regions in Asia.

The ‘Heavenly Horses’ of the West

Yet the Tea-Horse Road did share something of importance with the older and more venerable Silk Road, and that something was horses. Ever since the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259-10), unified China in the 3rd century BC, the Chinese Empire began to look westward, towards Central Asia, both for trade, and for territorial expansion. An absolutely necessity in this great enterprise was good horseflesh – something China was sadly lacking, but which its nomadic neighbours, Mongols, Turks and Tibetans, possessed in great numbers. Above all, the Chinese desired the ‘heavenly horses’, also known as ‘blood-sweating horses’, of the Ferghana Valley in present-day Uzbekistan.

Celestial horse. Painting by Tang Dynasty artist Han Gan (706-83)

Accordingly, the Chinese emperor Wu Di (141-87 BC) despatched missions to the west under the command of the imperial envoy Zhang Qian in 138 BC. The redoubtable Zhang Qian returned to Chang’an – present day Xi’an – thirteen years later and was heaped with praise and honours before going on, in 119 BC, to lead a second expedition to the west of the Tian Shan, effectively establishing diplomatic relations with Ferghana, Bactria and Sogdiana, all of which sent ambassadors to Chang’an, beginning a process of regular diplomatic missions to the Chinese capital. Zhang Qian returned via the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, bringing with him a gift of exquisite Ferghana horses for Emperor Wu Di. About a decade later another Chinese emissary returned the favour when he visited the Kingdom of Anxi or Parthia, taking with him gifts of fine silk, a fabric unknown at that time to the west of the Pamirs.

The foundations of future trade along the ancient Silk Road were thus put in place. Many rare and valuable goods were trafficked in either direction, but the initial, and long continuing basis for East-West commerce remained the exchange of Chinese silk for Central Asian horses.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of good quality horses to the Chinese state. At times of dynastic strength, as under the Han (206BC-220AD), the empire was able to deal, for the most part, on favourable terms with the nomads to the west, but in times of dynastic weakness the situation was reversed, so that lack of steeds from central Asia compounded Chinese military weakness. This conundrum is summed up in the Tang Shu or ‘Book of Tang’, which unequivocally states: ‘Horses are the military preparedness of the state. If Heaven takes away this preparedness, the state will totter and fall’.

The founders of the great Tang Dynasty (618-907), which coincided with the Golden Age of the ancient Silk Road, understood this very well. When the dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu (618-26), the state inherited a mere three thousand horses from its weak predecessor, the Sui. Through a combination of military conquest, trade and careful husbandry, by the time of the Emperor Gaozong (649-83) a mere four decades later, the state boasted no fewer than 706,000 horses, a force intended to awe and dominate the nomads of the northwest.

The Demise of Silk…

For at least two millennia, perhaps even from the time of the legendary Yellow Emperor Huangdi, China managed to maintain a very successful monopoly on the export of silkworms and the knowledge of sericulture. But no monopoly is foolproof, and no technology can be kept secret forever. The monopoly was defended by imperial decree imposing a mandatory death sentence on anyone attempting to export silkworms or their eggs, but this security was first breached – as far as is known – by the second century BC, when knowledge of sericulture reached Korea. It is thought likely to have reached Vietnam – an unwilling Chinese colony between 208 BC and 939 AD – at a similarly early date.

During the first half of the 1st century AD, silk worm technology is thought to have reached the Chinese-dominated oasis of Khotan in the Tarim Basin, a city that is still a centre of silk production today. A Chinese princess given in marriage to a Khotan prince is said to have carried the eggs of silkworms to her new husband concealed in her hair. It is thought that silkworms and knowledge of sericulture travelled from Khotan south to India and west to Sassanid Persia during the 3rd century AD, while records also recount a Japanese expedition to China in the same century carrying four silk-weaving girls, together with silkworm eggs, back to Japan.

From Persia knowledge of sericulture travelled slowly but inevitably further to the west. In particular the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527-65) was keen to strengthen his empire by expanding long distance trade, circumventing, in so far as was possible, the monopoly on silk still enjoyed by his Sassanid rivals. To this end he tried to establish contact with the expanding silk markets of South Asia by way of Ethiopia and the Red Sea, but to little avail. The real breakthrough came in 552, when Justinian first obtained the elusive silkworm eggs. These were smuggled to him across Persia by two Nestorian monks in bamboo tubes. With their safe arrival in Constantinople, silk would soon become a Mediterranean product, with China’s silk monopoly definitively broken.

…And the Rise of Tea

Circular compressed Pu'er tea, Xiaguan, 2004

Yet China still needed horses from Central Asia, as she would right down to the early decades of the 20th century. These could be seized by conquest, or gracefully accepted as tribute during times of dynastic strength. But how were they to be paid for at other times? Fortunately, from about the 7th century onwards, during the time of the Tang Dynasty, another export was discovered for which the settled populations of Tibet and Central Asia, as well the nomads of Mongolia and the Central Asian steppe, rapidly acquired an all-consuming taste – Chinese tea.

Tea – its botanical name Camellia sinensis clearly indicates that it originated in China – has been known to and valued by the Chinese as an infusion for millennia. According to tradition, the legendary Emperor Shennong first discovered the properties of tea almost five thousand years ago when, in 2737BC the wind blew some leaves from a nearby tree into a bowl of boiling water he was drinking, causing it to change colour. The curious monarch took a sip and was pleasantly surprised by the flavour and restorative properties of the brew, thus serendipitously discovering the art of drinking tea.

Science adopts a rather more prosaic explanation, claiming that tea production originated in Southeast Asia, and more specifically in the mountainous region where China meets Burma and Laos. Tea was almost certainly first put to culinary use, both as a food and a drink, in Yunnan, especially in the tropical southern districts now designated Pu’er Prefecture and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture – the latter known in the Tai-speaking world as Sipsongpanna., or ‘Twelve Thousand Rice Fields’.

Seemingly tea had spread from these frontier regions into China Proper centuries before the rise of the Tea-Horse trade, and was cultivated in Fujian among other eastern provinces. As early as the 6th century BC the philosopher and naturist Laozi described the infusion as ‘the froth of liquid jade’, an indispensable ingredient of the elixir of life. In 59BC the Chinese scholar Wang Bao wrote the first known treatise on buying and preparing tea, establishing that tea was not just a medicine but also an important dietary supplement by this early date. In 220 AD Hua Tuo, a physician from Anhui, praised tea for its restorative properties, commenting in his medical treatise Shin Lun that: ‘to drink bitter tea constantly makes one think better’.

Yet tea seems to have remained unknown, or at least unappreciated, in Tibet and Central Asia until Tang times – coinciding, fortuitously for the Chinese, with the decline of the Silk Monopoly. At its peak in around 750, the Tang capital of Chang’an [present-day Xi’an] was the largest and most populous city in the world. An estimated 800,000 to one million people lived within the city walls, with another one million or so living outside the walls in the greater metropolitan area. The city walls were simply massive, rising through 5.5 metres in height, and extending for 35 kilometres to form an elongated square with sides 8 kilometres by 9.5 kilometres. As many as 25,000 foreigners, including such diverse peoples as Turks, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Indians, Koreans, Malays, Japanese and Armenians, lived within the city walls, congregated mainly around the Western Market.

Chang’an was also a sophisticated, fun-loving city, with entertainers and courtesans, wine shops, taverns and tea houses. The latter were extremely popular, and many clustered around the so-called ‘Persian Bazaar’ in the west of the city, where the Silk Road began its long journey to the Mediterranean, and where merchants, money-lenders, caravaneers and entrepreneurs of just about every Asian (and some European) nationalities could be found. Tea-drinking rapidly acquired a cachet among Central Asian visitors to the city, and caravaneers soon began to purchase tea in bulk to carry west, along the long road back to Central Asia and the Middle East.

The First Tibetan Empire

In the mid-7th century, coinciding almost exactly with the rise of the Tang Dynasty, the ancient and little-known land of Bod, high on the great Himalayan Plateau, was unified for the first time by King Songtsän Gampo (604-50), founder of the first Tibetan Empire. Under his rule Tibetan power spread rapidly and unexpectedly across a huge area from Yunnan in the east to Ladakh in the west. Diplomatic relations with China were first established in 608, and in 640, in a bid to end continuing military conflicts between the two states, Songtsän Gampo requested the hand of a Chinese noblewoman in marriage. Perhaps surprisingly, though in clear indication of Tibet’s expanding power, Emperor Taizong agreed, and sent his niece, Princess Wencheng of Tang, to marry the ‘barbarian’ Tibetan ruler. From about this time Chinese influence began inexorably to expand at the Tibetan court.

It was also at about this time, following Songtsän Gampo’s conquest of western Yunnan and initial participation in the Silk Road trade, that tea first entered Tibet as a luxury commodity. It would prove to be immensely popular. According to the Tibetan Rgya Bod Yig tshan chen mo (Ch. Han Zang Shiji or ‘Historical records of China and Tibet’), within three decades, during the reign of King Tridu Songtsän (677-704), the Tibetan aristocracy had taken to tea with great enthusiasm, were using tea bowls, and classifying tea according to leaf and origin. It remained a luxury, however, and was probably still obtained in large part from the great trade marts of Chang’an.

It is interesting to note, however, that Songtsän Gampo also established diplomatic relations with the ancient Nanzhao Kingdom (7th-9th centuries) that dominated the tea-growing regions of Yunnan (not conquered by China until the 13th century Yuan Dynasty), and that when he invaded northwest Yunnan and conquered Lijiang and Dali, his forces followed the old caravan trail which would, in the fullness of time, become established as the southern Tea-Horse Road. We know from the Tang book Man Shu or ‘Book of the Southern Barbarians’ that tea trees already flourished in southern Yunnan at this time, and that the people of Nanzhao drank locally-produced tea, so it is also likely that the custom of drinking tea entered Tibet from this direction too, perhaps even before Princess Wencheng first graced the Tibetan court.

One thing, at least, is certain – tea cannot grow at the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau, and from the very start of the development of tea culture in Tibet had to be imported, either from Chang’an or from Yunnan, to satisfy the rapidly increasing demand for tea not just as a drink but, increasingly, as a staple part of the Tibetan diet.

Tibetan Butter Tea

During the later Tang and early Song periods (approximately between 750 and 1000 AD) tea consumption – the drinking and eating of tea – caught on in a big way across Tibet. The tea that the Tibetans most favoured was Pu’er Tea, which takes its name from Pu’er Prefecture near Simao City in southern Yunnan. The Tibetans began to mix fermented leaves of Pu’er tea with yak butter and salt to make a brew which rapidly became a staple, providing important high-calorie nutrition in the cold, high tablelands where fresh vegetables were few and the traditional diet rich in meat and dairy products. Tea leaves leavened this heavy diet and soon made a substantial contribution to general Tibetan health and well-being including, as a significant side benefit, helping to prevent chapped lips.

Today butter tea, known in Tibet as bod ja or ‘Tibetan tea’ or ja srub ma or ‘churned tea’ [the ja is clearly cognate with the English ‘char’ and similarly derived from the Chinese cha] remains as popular as ever, not just in Tibet, but also in parts of Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang within China, as well as in Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and Ladakh beyond China’s borders.

Most Western visitors to these regions agree that butter tea is very much an acquired taste. Frederick Spencer Chapman, author of Lhasa: The Holy City summed up Tibetan tea etiquette for visitors rather well in 1940, and things have changed but little since: ‘The leaves are boiled for several hours, then the infusion is poured into a section of hollow bamboo, where it is churned up with a plunger, together with a handful of salt, a pinch of soda, and a good lump of butter – usually rancid. The result is a purplish liquid of unusual taste for tea, but as soup excellent’.

Chapman may have been exaggerating when he claimed that ‘any good Tibetan drinks fifty or sixty cups of tea every day of his life’, though it is credibly reported that Tibetan nomads, at least, may drink as many as forty cups a day. Chapman also bemoaned the fact that ‘Certainly we cannot grow it (Chinese brick tea) in India, which is a pity, because every year thousands of loads of tea come over the passes several months’ journey from China’. In fact, the brick tea Chapman describes was almost exclusively transported by caravan, along the old Tea-Horse Road, from Pu’er in southern Yunnan, as well as from Ya’an in Sichuan.

Pu’er Tea Traditions

Pu’er is a type of tea made from a ‘large leaf’ variety of the tea plant Camellia sinensis var. assamica that is indigenous to southwest China, as well as to neighbouring parts of Burma, Laos, Vietnam and eastern Assam. Traditionally Pu’er is made from the leaves of old, wild tea trees, though a natural scarcity of such ancient trees – some more than 500 years old – means that today most Pu’er teas are blends made from carefully-tended tea estates.

In its initial picked form, Pu’er is called maocha or unoxidized ‘rough’ tea. The maocha can undergo any one of three distinct processing methods, resulting in very different tea products, namely green tea, fermented tea and post-fermented tea. While Pu’er has been known and valued by connoisseurs in China for at least 1,500 years, it seems likely that the Tang Court knew and appreciated green or raw variant known as shengcha that had not been fermented. By contrast, the Tibetan trade was built around the alternative variant known as shoucha, ‘ripe’ or post-fermented tea that can be compressed and stored, making it ideal for long-distance transport by caravan. Better yet, unlike green tea, the post-fermented variant of Pu’er can be preserved for years, and in the opinion of Pu’er connoisseurs actually improves, rather like a vintage wine, with ageing.

Today Pu’er tea is most celebrated in its post-fermented form, and in the last three decades a burgeoning industry has grown around Pu’er shoucha that has developed a considerable cachet with a discerning, tea-loving clientele not just in China, but in distant Europe and North America. It is not clear, though, that the Pu’er tea originally transported by caravan to Tibet more than a thousand years ago was anywhere near as sophisticated or diverse as today’s post-fermented Pu’er, now divided into more than ten grades and distinguished by size of leaf, quality, plantation of origin and factory of production.

Hunan brick tea

Rather, it seems likely that local tea merchants in southern Yunnan may have responded to a growing demand for tea from Tibet by compressing and packaging leftover, broken or inferior leaves, as well as tea powder, into tea bricks that could be easily transported by mule caravan or human porters over the long road to Lhasa and beyond. Better yet, these zhuancha or ‘tea bricks’ continued to ferment during their passage to Tibet, adding a strong flavour which appealed to Tibetan tastes.

Ian Lyons, a researcher on Pu’er tea, notes that: ‘the climb from southern Yunnan to the Tibetan plateau, ascending some 3000 metres and sometimes traversing over 1000 miles… was no simple task. The horses, mules and even yaks called into service to transport the tea understandably did a fair bit of sweating. This moisture, combined with their own body heat furthered the fermentation process, so that when the tea finally reached its destination, it looked more like flaky dirt… The Tibetans, who intended to mix it with still more ingredients, did not appear to mind the colour. Indeed, they seemed to prefer it’. This seems to be born out by Chapman, who notes that on the arrival of a caravan in Lhasa the locals ‘spread the tea bricks on the road for several days to let it acquire the strength and flavour demanded by Tibetan palates’.

Despite such apparently second-rank origins, Pu’er brick tea caught on in a major way in Tibet. In practical terms, it was readily transportable and easily preserved, making it an ideal form of currency in a largely pre-monetised economy. In earnest of this, pressed tea bricks were scored on the back, making it easy to break them down into equal-sized parts for commercial exchange. Pu’er had other, invigorating and healthy qualities, too, making it an ideal addition to the meat- and dairy-rich Tibetan diet. Taken as salty Tibetan buttered tea, or mixed with tsampa roasted barley, Pu’er is rich in proteins and nutrients, provides necessary roughage and – we now know – also helps to decrease cholesterol and lower blood pressure. In short, Pu’er tea became a form of pre-modern health and energy drink, a restorative that Tibetans enjoyed so much that it was soon considered a necessity.

The ‘Six Great Tea Mountains’

Yunnan Province, and more particularly the most southerly regions of Xishuangbanna and Pu’er Prefectures, are the original home of Pu’er tea, but the long-leafed Camellia sinensis is widely cultivated across the province, as well as in nearby Sichuan and, to a lesser extent, in Hunan and Guangdong. Nevertheless, Pu’er is generally considered the ‘home’ of its namesake beverage, as apparently it has been ever since China discovered the art of drinking tea. Nevertheless, the most celebrated areas of Pu’er production have traditionally been the ‘Six Great Tea Mountains’ or liuda chashan, located not in Pu’er, but in neighbouring Xishuangbanna.

The names and locations of these tea-producing mountains have changed or been altered over the centuries, but all are grouped closely together in southern Yunnan. Under the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) they were located to the northeast of the Lancang or Mekong River and of the capital Jinghong. They had resonant and memorable local names which translate as: ‘Leather Stirrup’, ‘Seed Bag’, ‘Copper Cauldron’, ‘Iron Brick’, ‘Wooden Clapper’ and ‘Copper Gong’. To the southwest, in less accessible country to the west of the Mekong, were another six less famous tea mountains, the best-known of which was ‘Southern Sticky Rice Mountain’, known for its zijuan or ‘purple lady’ variant of the local tea.

Local sources indicate that by the mid-20th century these mountains had been largely abandoned or over-picked. As a consequence, and to maintain the aura surrounding the designation Pu’er tea, the Yunnan authorities designated a new ‘Six Great Tea Mountains’ famous for producing tea in the same area. These included Yiwu, Jingmai, Menghai, Nannuo, Boulang and Youle – the latter, ‘Copper Gong’, being the only one of the original six mountains to be included in the new list.

The best Pu’er tea may have grown in the mountains of Xishuangbanna, but most of the produce was destined to travel north to China and Tibet, though tea was also exported in lesser quantities south to Burma, Laos and Thailand. The main market towns immediately to the north of Jinghong are Simao and Pu’er, and the latter, particularly, has a long history as a caravan centre – so tea from Xishuangbanna, as well as from the mountains around Simao and Pu’er, was traded in the market at Pu’er and packaged for onward transportation north, along the old Tea-Horse Road.

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Stylised map of the main tea roads between Xishuangbanna, Ya'an and Lhasa

The Yunnan-Tibet Tea-Horse Road

The Tea-Horse Road starting in Pu’er and running north and west all the way to Lhasa was the longest and most important of the various ‘Tea-Horse’ routes, yet it was just one amongst numerous lesser branches, shortcuts and side-turns. Rather like the main channel of a river, it gained traffic from tributaries as it progressed north and west. Subsequently it would lose traffic on the way back as traders returned to their own towns and villages.

In its initial stages, the road ran north from Pu’er to Jinggu before turning west to cross the Lancang (Mekong) near Douge. It then headed north across mountainous country to Lincang, Yunxian and Nanjian, closely following the route currently taken by Highway 214 between Jinghong and Xiaguan. Today Route 214 continues east, through Midu, to Xiaguan, but in times past the main Tea-Horse Road ran more to the west, along the narrow valley dominated by the predominantly Hui Muslim centre of Weishan, over the pass at Dacang, and down to a major junction at Xiaguan City by the southern shores of Lake Er Hai.

From Xiaguan a Tea-Horse spur road ran southwest to Burma via Yongping, Baoshan and Tengchong – a route paralleled for much of its distance by today’s Highway 320, crossing the Nujiang (Salween River) west of Baoshan and continuing to Ruili and the eastern frontier of Burma (Myanmar). Just south of Xiaguan another route led east to Kunming, the provincial capital – today traces of the old cobbled road are readily discernable from the broad, four-lane superhighway that has cut journey time between Xiaguan and Kunming to a mere four hours. But the main Tea-Horse route continued north, again following the contemporary Highway 214, by the west bank of Lake Er Hai, to the ancient walled city of Dali, from1856-72 the capital of Du Wenxiu’s breakaway Hui Muslim state styled Ping Nan Guo, the ‘Kingdom of the Peaceful South’.

In fact the trade of the entire region between Pu’er and Dali, extending west as far as Tengchong and north to the confines of Lijiang, has traditionally been dominated by Hui Muslim merchants. Today Hui restaurateurs, hoteliers and transport firms are still present and conspicuously successful, while in times past Hui Muslim traders, operating the so-called Huihui mabang or ‘Muslim mule-caravans’, were responsible for most of the regional tea trade.

North of Old Dali the route continued through the market town of Jianchuan, once an important bazaar on the old Tea-Horse Road, to the ancient city of Lijiang, cultural centre of the Naxi people and of their mountain neighbours, the Yi. Lijiang was (and is) a cultural crossroads, where Tibetan traders from the northwest congregate to do business with the local Naxi, Yi, Hui and of course the dominant Han Chinese, in the shadow of magnificent Yulong Xueshan or ‘Jade Dragon Snow Mountain’, a permanently snow-capped, 5,596m peak that symbolically marks the start of the long road to Tibet. Today Lijiang is extraordinarily prosperous due to its tourist appeal, and the town is filled with shops selling elaborately-pressed cakes of Pu’er tea. An elegant tea house sits by the shore of Black Dragon Pond to the north of town, the snow-covered peak of Yulong Xueshan reflected in the still waters. There can be few more evocative places to sip locally-produced Pu’er tea and ponder the long and heroic history of the Tea-Horse Road.

Tea-Horse Road, Tiger-Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, Peter Goullart, c. 1940

Beyond Lijiang the route continues northwest, followed closely by Highway 214 all the way to the Tibetan city of Chamdo. It passes close to the celebrated ‘First Bend’ of the Chang Jiang or Yangzi River, known in these western regions as Jinsha Jiang, the ‘River of Golden Sands’. Next it enters the extraordinarily deep and narrow Hutiao Xia or ‘Tiger-leaping Gorge’, where the Yangzi is channelled north through a series of powerful rapids for 15km beneath towering 2,000 metre cliffs. Considered by some experts to be the deepest river canyon in the world, the narrow track of the former Tea-Horse Road still clings precariously to the upper cliffs, thousands of feet above the waters roiling below.

After Tiger-Leaping Gorge the route continues northwest to Zhongdian, still part of Yunnan Province but also the capital of Deqin Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, and culturally a part of Tibet. In 2001 Zhongdian was officially renamed ‘Shangri La’ (Xianggelila) after the fictional mountain utopia in James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon – but its Tibetan population still call it Gyalthang. Today an increasingly popular tourist destination, it is distinguished by the 300-year-old Ganden Sumtseling Monastery, and has a distinctly Tibetan aura. In times past, it is likely that much of the Tea-Horse traffic in this region – and, indeed, north of Lijiang – was carried by Naxi and Tibetan muleteers, though some Hui caravans undoubtedly continued all the way to Lhasa, where a settlement of Hui – known locally as gya khache or ‘Chinese Muslims’ – has long existed in that city’s Wapaling (Hebalin) Quarter.

Meili Xueshan looms over Dequen on the Yunnan-Tibet frontier, 1920s

After Zhongdian, the route follows Highway 214 through high, increasingly narrow mountain valleys to the small town of Deqin, near the frontier of China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region. Deqin is still more than 60 percent ethnically Tibetan (compared with a Han Chinese population of around 20 percent) and at the height of the Tea-Horse trade was part of the traditional eastern Tibetan realm of Kham. Deqin is located in the shadow of awesome Meili Xueshan, known in Tibetan as Kawakarpo, at 6,740m the highest mountain in Yunnan. A sacred pilgrimage destination for Tibetan Buddhists, it has a reputation for being cruel and inaccessible – a group of seventeen experienced Chinese and Japanese climbers attempting the summit in 1991 were all killed in a night-time avalanche – and still the peak remains unclimbed, as do all significant surrounding summits.

The Meili Xueshan range is part of the Hengduan Shan, a defining point on the old Tea-Horse trail marking the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Largely covered in coniferous forests and home to a diverse and complex range of species including the endangered Giant Panda, the region is sparsely inhabited, very inhospitable and difficult to cross. The old Tea-Horse Road, now followed almost exactly by Highway 214 – also known as the Yunnan-Tibet Highway – cuts north from Deqin, crossing the current Tibetan frontier, and continues through the small and isolated settlement of Yanjing before reaching, at last, the pivotal Tibetan market town of Markam (in Chinese: Mangkang), once one of the most important junctions on the Tea-Horse Road, where tea caravans from Yunnan met up with tea caravans from Sichuan before continuing west, to Lhasa and beyond.

Crenellated peaks, Hengduan Shan, Yunnan-Tibet frontier (1924)

The Sichuan-Tibet Tea-Horse Road

The second most significant branch of the Tea-Horse Road, surpassed only by the Yunnan-Markam route in importance, started at Ya’an in western Sichuan.

Like southern Yunnan, western Sichuan has a long history of tea cultivation stretching back, according to Chinese records, as far as Han Dynasty times (206BC-220AD). According to the earliest known Chinese manual on pharmacology, the Shennong Bencao Jing (‘Shennong Classic Materia Medica’), tentatively dated to the 1st century BC, the first recorded tea plantation was established in 53BC by the legendary tea cultivator Wu Lizhen in Mingshan County, Ya’an Prefecture. Wu Lizhen is said to have planted ‘seven seeds of miraculous tea’ in his tea garden at Mengshan. During Tang Dynasty times, in 742 AD, Mengshan tea was designated part of the imperial tribute of the Ya’an region, a custom which continued down to the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Today Mengshan lies within Mount Mengdinshan Scenic Area, where Wu Lizhen’s tea garden is preserved – the tea trees are said to be replanted ‘every three to four hundred years’ – together with a tea museum.

Armed Khampa Tibetans at Yanjing on the Tea-Horse Road between Deqin and Markam, 1910

Certainly Ya’an has long been associated with excellence in production of tea, and since the variety of tea grown is long-leafed Pu’er, while Ya’an Prefecture is contiguous with Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to the west and Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Region to the north, it is hardly surprising that, over the centuries, Ya’an developed as a tea supplier to the Tibetan market to rival Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan. As a consequence, a network of ‘Tea-Horse’ routes developed to the north and west of Ya’an, carrying tea by human portage or mule caravan up onto the high Tibet-Qinghai Plateau, leading ultimately either to Markam County (where it joined with the main Yunnan-Tibet Tea-Horse Road), or via the tea distribution centres Songpan, Garze and Yushu, to Gansu and Qinghai.

If anything, the Sichuan-Tibet Tea Road was even more difficult than the longer route from Yunnan. Immediately to the west of Ya’an the route – now more-or-less synonymous with Highway 318 from Ya’an to Lhasa and the Nepalese frontier – rises sharply towards 3,437m Erlang Shan, a treacherous and difficult massif cutting Ya’an off from Luding and the Dadu River Valley. Today a twisting but wide paved road runs between Ya’an and Luding, and the notoriously difficult Erlang Shan Pass is effectively bypassed by a recently-constructed (2000-1) 4.2km long tunnel through the mountains – currently the highest road tunnel in China.

Beyond Erlang Shan the road curves down to the Dadu River Gorge and the old caravan town of Luding, best known for its ancient, 104m single-span iron suspension bridge and for the key battle that was fought there on the ‘Long March’ in 1935, when the Red Army seized the bridge intact from the pro-KMT forces of Liu Wenhui.

West of the Luding Bridge, the route climbs higher into the mountains – in this case the Daxue Shan or ‘Great Snow Mountains’ before reaching the old caravan centre of Kangding. Famous throughout China for a popular love-song inspired by the spectacular local scenery, Kangding is compressed into a narrow valley between steep mountainsides, and is dominated to the south by the awe-inspiring, permanently snow-clad massif of Gongga Shan (7,556m).

As with Zhongdian on the southern branch of the old Tea-Horse Road, although well inside Sichuan Province, Kangding marks the beginning of the end of ‘China Proper’ and the start of the Tibetan world. Today the town is predominantly Han Chinese, but the atmosphere is palpably Tibetan, with Khampa tribesmen from eastern Tibetan trading, as they have for centuries past, in a market that – in addition to manufactured goods from the eastern provinces – still features yak meat, sheepskins, bales of wool, medicinal herbs and, above all, bricks of Pu’er tea from Ya’an, once sewn in yak-hide, today machine-pressed and branded in waterproof wrappings.

Beyond Kangding, the former Tea-Horse Road – now more-or-less identical with Highway 318 – continues west across magnificent but difficult country, crossing the Yalong River at Yajiang and climbing still further towards the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau via the caravan town of Litang (celebrated in the ‘ode’ to the Tea-Horse Road for its tsampa or Tibetan-style roasted barley). Located on broad grass plains that are ideal for grazing, and surrounded by snow-capped peaks, Litang (4,680m) is very much a part of the old Tibetan province of Khampa, a region of yak-skin clad Tibetan riders and whitewashed stupas called chorten that mark passes and difficult sections of road. The northern part of Litang remains overwhelmingly Tibetan, and here too can be found Chöde Gompa, a Mahayana Buddhist lamasery built for the third Dalai Lama (1578-88) containing an image of Sakyamuni Buddha said to have been brought from Lhasa by caravan.

Tibetan Autonomous Region, Counties and Prefectures

West of Litang, just 30km from the frontier between Sichuan and the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Batang is another venerable old caravan town that is celebrated in the ‘Tea-Horse’ ode for the sweetness of its bod ja or butter tea. The atmosphere is mixed Han-Tibetan, with the former more numerous in the newer part of town. Surrounded by snowy peaks, Batang is known for its many teashops, offering the last chance for a refreshing cup of Pu’er or Tibetan butter tea before crossing the Yangzi River into Tibet Proper.

After Batang, the road descends into the narrow valley of the upper Jinsha Jiang, headwater of the Yangzi, before climbing, once again, through the precipitous Ningjing Shan to Markam County, where it meets up with the old Tea-Horse Road from Yunnan, a vital trade crossroads from antiquity now marked by the junction of Route 318 (the Sichuan-Tibet Highway) and Route 214 (the Yunnan-Tibet Highway). Beyond Markam, to the west, the joint Tea-Horse Road continues to Lhasa via a continuation of Highway 318.

The Burden of Human Portage

Mule caravan and tea porters, Yunnan, Delaporte, c. 1868

Tea Porters, Western Sichuan (E.H. Wilson, 1908)

As recently as the first decades of the 20th century, much of the tea transported by the ancient Tea-Horse Road was carried not by mule caravan, but by human porters, giving real substance to the once widely-employed designation ‘coolie’, a term thought to have been derived from the Chinese kuli or ‘bitter labour’. This was particularly true of smaller tracks and trails leading from remote tea-picking areas to the arterial Tea-Horse routes, both in Yunnan and in Sichuan.

Perhaps because this human portage played a less economically significant role than the large – sometimes huge – yak, pony and mule caravans, and perhaps because there is little or no romance attached to the piteous sight of over-burdened, inadequately-clad and under-nourished porters hauling themselves and their massive loads across muddy valleys and freezing mountain passes, less information is available to us concerning tea porters than about tea caravans.

Fortunately some black-and-white images of these incredibly wiry, tough, hard-bitten men have come down to us from Sichuan, as well as at least one 150-year-old French-made lithograph from Yunnan, in addition to some rare oral accounts describing the immense difficulties these hardy wretches had to face.

In the latter category, as recently as 2003 China Daily carried an interview with four former tea porters in Ganxipo Village, near Tianquan County to the southwest of Ya’an. Now in their 80s, these veterans recall hard times before the completion of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway in 1954 when they would carry almost impossibly heavy loads of Sichuan Pu’er tea over a narrow mountain trail across the freezing heights of Erlang Shan (‘Two Wolves Mountain’) to Luding and onwards, across the Dadu River, to the tea distribution centre at Kangding.

According to 81-year-old former tea porter Li Zhongquan, tea was carried by human portage all the way from Tianquan County to Kangding, a distance of 180km (112 miles) each way on narrow mountain tracks, much of the way at dangerously high altitudes in freezing temperatures. According to Li, an able-bodied porter would carry 10 to 12 packs of tea, each weighing between 6 and 9 kg. To this had to be added 7 to 8 kg of grain for sustenance en route, as well as ‘five or six pairs of homemade straw sandals to change on the way’.

The strongest porters could carry 15 packs of tea, making a total load of around 150 kg (330 imperial pounds). ‘The grain lasted no longer than half the journey’, Li remembered, ‘and you had to replenish your food supply at your own expense’. As for the multiple pairs of straw sandals: ‘these would be worn out quickly, as the mountain path was extremely rough’.

To make the portage of such heavy loads possible, and to help guard against the ever-present danger of overbalancing and falling into one of the many deep ravines skirted by the narrow mountain trail, tea porters carried iron-tipped T-shaped walking sticks both to assist in struggling over the steep, rocky path, and to rest the load on, without taking it off their backs, when they paused for breath. A surviving section of the old stone path near Ganxipo Village bears testament to the almost unimaginable difficulties faced by the tea porters in the past; small holes dot the stone slabs of the path at regular intervals of a pace or so, indicating where, over centuries and perhaps even millennia, the porters struck the rock with their iron-tipped sticks as they made their laborious way to and from Kangding.

Tea carriers, Sichuan-Tibet borderlands, late 19th-early 20th century

It is possible to identify the T-shaped walking-and-support sticks used by the tea porters in black and white photographs from a century or more ago, including one taken by the American explorer and botanist E.H. Wilson, who helpfully appends the information: ‘Western Szechuan; men laden with “brick tea” for Thibet. One man's load weighs 317 lbs [144 kilos], the other's 298 lbs [135 kilos]. Men carry this tea as far as Tachien-lu [Kangding] accomplishing about six miles per day over vile roads. Altitude 5,000 ft [1,500m] July 30, 1908’.

For the tea porters of Ganxipo Village, the hardest part of their journey was the climb over Erlang Shan. The precipitous mountain trail was so narrow that it was only wide enough for one person to pass at a time. According to Li Zhongquan: ‘one misstep, and you were gone – we had our sandals soled with iron to get over the mountain’. Li also remembers when: ‘one of us was sick and fell dead on the mountain top in winter. We had to leave him there until the snow thawed in spring, when we carried the body down home’.

The porters carried tea from Tianquan to Kangding, and returned with loads of medicinal herbs (especially Cordyceps sinensis of Chinese caterpillar fungus), musk, wool, horn and other Tibetan products. The four porters interviewed in China Daily did not know for sure when the tea portage trade had started in Ganxipo, but Li was certain that ‘my grandpa’s grandpa was a porter as well,’ and that the whole village had offered porter services for generations.

The Tea-Horse Road from Markam to Lhasa

The old tea routes from Yunnan and Sichuan may have converged at Markam, the easternmost caravanserai in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, but despite reaching this long-anticipated goal, the traditional Tea-Horse Road to Lhasa still had a very long way to go, and through countryside that, for all its magnificence, was no easier to follow.

A tea caravan at Songpan, NW Sichuan (1926)

West of Markam, the former tea route – now Highway 318 – crosses the Lancang Jiang (Mekong River) and continues through the small Tibetan settlements of Zogang and Yarzhong before reaching the junction town of Bangda. Here the road divides, with Highway 214 leading north to Qamdo, capital of the traditional Tibetan region of Kham, and today Tibet’s third largest city after Lhasa and Shigatse. In times past Qamdo was also an important centre on the ‘Tea-Horse’ network, connecting to Qinghai via the remote tea-trading centre of Lushu (Gyěgu) in the north, and to the Chengdu-Ya’an region of Sichuan via a more northerly branch of the Sichuan-Tibet Tea-Horse Road running through Garze to the east.

The more southerly road out of Bangda – still Highway 318 – crosses the upper waters of the Nujiang (Salween River), before following the course of the old Tea-Horse Road west to Lhasa via a series of relatively nondescript, small Tibetan towns. The first of these, Baxoi (Baxiu) is mentioned in the Tea-Horse ‘ode’ as a stop on the way to Markam. Next comes Rawu, set against a magnificent backdrop of snow-capped mountains; then Bomi, seat of a quasi-independent kingdom until the early 20th century when troops of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1895-1933) brought it permanently under the control of Lhasa; and finally Tangmai in the valley of the Yiong Zangbo, a tributary of the nearby Yarlung Zangbo (Brahmaputra River), at the comparatively low altitude of 1,700m unexpectedly surrounded by alpine jungle amid ferns and monkeys.

Beyond Tangmai the road continues west through Nyingchi, Bayizhen and Gongbo’gyamda, passing through sparsely-inhabited areas still inhabited by leopard, bear, musk deer and otter, before reaching Maizho Kunggar on the left bank of the Lhasa River. From this point the route follows the river southwest to Lhasa, passing Ganden Namgyeling, one of the ‘Great Three’ monasteries of Tibet (together with Sera and Drepung). Ganden was established by Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug-pa or ‘Yellow Hat’ sect in 1409, and is the alma mater of the current Dalai Lama who sat his final degree examinations here in 1958. In times past Buddhist Tea-Horse traders and caravaneers would no doubt have made offerings here in gratitude at having safely reached the outskirts of Lhasa; their Chinese Muslim companions had to wait until entering the city, when they would have gone to pray at the Bara Masjid or ‘Big Mosque’ (Tibetan name Rgyal Lha Khang, founded as early as 1716) in the city’s Hui Muslim Wapaling District.

The Tea-Horse Road from Lhasa to India

Tibetan Nomads, Joespeh Rock, 1925

Tea shop with sewn bags of brick tea, Lhasa, c. 1928

Lhasa may have been the most important market in Tibet for Pu’er tea, but it was also a transit point for Chinese brick tea destined for points further west within Tibet – notably the major towns of Shigatse and Gyantse, now respectively Tibet’s second and fourth largest urban centres – as well as for Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim and India.

Today, with India established as the world’s second largest tea producer after China, it may seem strange that, as recently as the mid-19th century, tea was exported from China to India along the ancient Tea-Horse Road via Tibet. Yet such was indeed the case. The British established a sanatorium at Darjeeling in 1835 by agreement with the Chogyal (hereditary ruler) of Sikkim, and in 1841 Dr Arthur Campbell, as Superintendent of this newest addition to the territories of the British Raj, planted ‘China tea seeds’ in the garden of his official residence at Beechwood. The tea seedlings grew well, and by the second half of the 19th century British-owned tea estates were established throughout the area, as well as spreading into Assam.

Before this time, according to a ‘Darjeeling Tea History’ published by the Darjeeling News ‘The native tribes in the Himalayas drank tea that was imported from Tibet, which was transported thousands of kilometres. It was a coarse, harsh, black tea, which arrived in blocks or bricks of 2.7 kg, or 3.1 kg weight, and 20 cm in length and 10 cm deep, and was sewn up in raw kidskins, where the tea appeared through the stitches at the sides. It costed [sic] two shillings a pound’. This tea, known locally as ‘Thibet brick’, was boiled in a large iron pot ‘together with a little salt, butter and parched barley meal’. Next ‘each partaker of the tea produced his or her own wooden teacup from the bosom folds of their capacious clothes, and when the cup had been frequently filled, and as rapidly emptied, it was licked clean by the owner and replaced whence it was taken. Everyone was supposed to carry a teacup about the person and ten or twelve cups full was considered no extraordinary drink for a tea-loving Bhotia’ (Sikkimese). Clearly, the Sikkimese and Bengalis traditionally purchased and drank Pu’er tea imported from Yunnan and Sichuan.

In fact, before the British annexed Darjeeling to India in 1835 and made the Choygal of Sikkim into a British puppet, Sikkim had been the main gateway by which Chinese tea had reached Assam and Bengal. Tea caravans set out from Lhasa on a dizzying extension of the Tea-Horse Road that led south over the Kampa La pass (4,794m), through Nagarze, across the Karo La pass (5,045m) west to Gyantse, and then south again across Tang La pass (5,060m) to Pagri and to Yadong – the latter being the last town in Tibet before the difficult Nathu La Pass (4,310m) marking the frontier with Sikkim.

This fascinating – and once very profitable – extension of the Tea-Horse Road from distant Ya’an and Xishuangbanna led the muleteers past the turquoise waters of Yamdrok Tso, the third largest lake in Tibet, through the village of Nagarze, to Gyantse, remarkable for its old Dzong or fortress, as well as for the spectacular Kumbum Chorten (’10,000 images stupa’), rising in nine levels from the grounds of Pelkor Chode Monastery to the northwest of town. With 108 chapels and seemingly countless murals, this vast chorten, crowned with a gilded dome and umbrella, offers spectacular views across the old wool- and tea-trading centre of Gyantse to the south.

Beyond Gyantse, the old Tea-Horse Road to India – now Highway 204 – climbs through spectacular, sparsely-inhabited terrain, passing the villages of Kangmar, Gala and Guru (all currently with fewer than 500 inhabitants) before reaching Pagri – at 4,700m (15,000 ft) one of the highest and coldest settlements anywhere in the world – and finally Yadong, the last town in China before Sikkim, situated in the mouth of the Chumbi Valley by the frontiers with both India and Bhutan. Here the muleteers would have been able to pause before crossing into Sikkim, enjoying comforts both spiritual – Yadong is home to Donggar and Garju Monasteries – and mundane, since the border town has long been known for its hot springs, tasty ‘Yadong fish’ and intoxicating barley wine.

Web image

Kanchengjunga from Gangtok

Immediately after Yadong the old caravan road leads over the Nathu La Pass, climbing to 4,310m before crossing the frontier and descending, initially through harsh alpine terrain and later through lush rhododendron forests, to the Sikkimese capital of Gangtok (1,437m), until 1975 seat of the hereditary Chogyal of Sikkim, and also, following the construction of Enchey Monastery in 1840, an important Mahayana Buddhist pilgrimage site.

Gangtok, a tranquil and delightful town set on a ridge facing the snowy peak of Kanchenjunga, at 8,598m the world’s third highest mountain, really marks the end of the old Tea-Horse Road from China to India. From here it’s a short and relatively easy journey, via the villages of Singtam and Rangpo, to the hill station of Kalimpong, the first town in West Bengal, and then on to Darjeeling, another famous hill station dating from British times which, today, is internationally famous for its many excellent tea estates.

The Decline of the Tea-Horse Road in China

The Tea-Horse route between China and Tibet received an unexpected boost in the mid-20th century, following the full-scale outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937, and more particularly after the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in December, 1941. Within months of launching this attack, Japanese forces had overrun much of Southeast Asia and invaded the then-British colony of Burma, cutting the ‘Burma Road’ – China’s military and economic lifeline in the anti-Japanese struggle – at the Lashio railhead, and forcing the Allies to supply Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang forces by air across the eastern Himalayas, flying ‘The Hump’ between airfields in Assam and Kunming in China.

The Ledo Road

This military disaster caused the Allies to start building the ‘Ledo Road’ between the railhead at Ledo in Assam and the southern terminus of the Burma Road at Lashio, an undertaking characterised by Winston Churchill as ‘an immense, laborious task, unlikely to be finished until the need for it has passed’. In fact, the Ledo Road was completed in late 1944, and the first convoy between Assam and China reached Kunming in February, 1945, just six months before Japan’s unconditional surrender.

The construction of the Burma and Ledo roads helped substantially to diminish the importance of the India-China trade via Sikkim and Tibet, but not before the Japanese invasion had caused a final, memorable surge in traffic eastwards along the old caravan route. Peter Goullart, a Russian resident of Lijiang in the 1940s, records that, as a result of the war: ‘an unprecedented caravan trade developed… between Lhasa and Lijiang’. According to Goullart, at the height of what he terms ‘Operation Caravan’, no fewer than 8,000 mules and 20,000 yaks were employed to carry supplies along the venerable Tea-Horse Road. His unique account is worth quoting at some length:

‘Sewing-machines, textiles, cases of the best cigarettes, both British and American, whiskies and gins of famous brands, dyes and chemicals, kerosene oil in tins, toilet and canned goods and a thousand and one varieties of small articles started flowing in an unending stream by rail and truck [from Calcutta] to Kalimpong, to be hastily repacked and dispatched by caravan to Lhasa. There the flood of merchandise was crammed into the halls and courtyards of the palaces and lamaseries and turned over to an army of sorters and professional packers. The least fragile goods were set aside for the northern route to Tachienlu [Kangding], to be transported by yaks: other articles were packed for delivery at Lijiang, especially the liquors and cigarettes which were worth their weight in gold in Kunming, crowded with thirsty American and British troops…Few people have realized how vast and unprecedented this sudden expansion of caravan traffic between India and China was, or how important’.

This was to be, however, the ‘last hurrah’ of the traditional Tea-Horse Road, which would soon be rendered obsolete by a combination of a political sea-change and road construction. In 1949 Mao Zedong’s communists seized power in China, and in 1950-51 the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) advanced into Tibet, restricting free trade and severely limiting traffic across the Nathu La pass with India. Over the following decades, Beijing began to build a series of major national highways, including Highway 318 (5,334 km) between Shanghai and Zhanmuzhen on the Tibetan frontier with Nepal (1954) and Highway 214 (3,345 km) between Xishuangbanna in Yunnan and Xining in Qinghai (1974). Following the completion of such all-weather, surfaced highways, the Ancient Tea-Horse Road to Tibet soon became effectively redundant.

The Closure of the Tea-Horse Road to Sikkim

The south-western extension of the old Tea-Horse Road from Lhasa to Gangtok really began to flourish after 1893, when – prompted by the British – the rulers of Sikkim and Tibet signed an agreement to promote trade across the Nathu La pass. For the first half of the 20th century this route was busy with caravan traffic, despite the high and difficult terrain, culminating in the surge of overland trade described by Peter Goullart during the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942.

All this altered radically following the end of World War II, when momentous changes began to take place throughout the region. In 1948 India became independent and, much to China’s displeasure, established special protectorate status over Sikkim and sent troops to man the frontier at Nathu La. In 1949 the communists seized power in China, establishing the Chinese People’s Republic, and in 1950 the PLA took control of Tibet, moving their forces up to the Chinese side of Nathu La, where they confronted the Indian troops.

During this period, some cross-border trade continued, but at much reduced levels. Goods such as watches, pens, cereals, cotton cloth, soap, edible oils, building materials, and dismantled vehicles were exported to Tibet over the pass by mule caravan. Around two hundred mules, each carrying about 80 kg (175 lb) of load, were used to transport goods from Gangtok to Lhasa, on a journey taking 20–25 days. Upon return, silk, raw wool, musk pods, medicinal plants, country liquor, precious stones, gold and Tibetan silverware were imported into India – though apparently no longer tea, following the establishment of thriving tea estates at Kalimong and Darjeeling.

Sino-Indian relations deteriorated further following the failed Tibetan uprising of 1959 and the flight of the Dalai Lama, together with thousands of his followers, to Dharamsala. At this time Sikkim became a major conduit for refugees escaping from Tibet. Relations reached rock bottom in 1962, when continuing Sino-Indian border disputes across a vast area extending from Kashmir in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east led to a short, but vicious, Sino-Indian War from which China emerged victorious, and India badly humiliated.

As a result of this conflict, all land routes between India and China were closed, including the pass at Nathu La. Over the next decade tensions remained high, especially in 1967 (at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution) when border skirmishes over Sikkim led to exchanges of heavy artillery fire across the frontier at Nathu La. Next, in 1975, following unrest in Sikkim between native Sikkimese and Nepali migrants, the Indian Army seized control of Gangtok, disarming the Chogyal’s palace guards. A referendum was held in which, by an overwhelming majority, the population voted to join the Indian Union. On May 16, 1975, Sikkim officially became the 22nd Indian state, and the monarchy was abolished.

China, greatly displeased at this development, flatly refused to recognise this change of Sikkim’s status, just as India continued to deny recognition of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. At Nathu La the old customs post was closed, and the narrow road between Yadong and Gangtok was blocked with concrete and barbed wire. For the next four decades, until as recently as 2006, the only person permitted to cross this frontier was a Chinese postman, accompanied by an Indian military escort, who would exchange mail with his Indian counterpart at the old customs building.

The Rebirth of the Tea-Horse Road in China…

Following the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and the gradual abandonment of a socialist command economy in favour of a de facto free market, China has become increasingly rich and its people – within the constraints of continuing Communist Party political control – increasingly free. One interesting consequence of this transformation has been the rebirth of the ancient Tea-Horse Road, albeit in a new guise.

To be sure, the people of Tibet still drink a great deal of butter tea, and the tea plantations of Yunnan and Sichuan now produce more and better quality tea than at any time in their history. But this produce now travels overland to Lhasa and beyond by truck, along paved roads. Except in the most remote of rural areas, the mule caravan has had its day.

And yet, unexpectedly, the fame of the ancient Tea-Horse Road is currently experiencing a revival that shows no sign of diminishing. In the increasingly rich and sophisticated cafes and teashops of Shanghai and Beijing, as well as a world away in cities like New York and San Francisco, London, Paris and Melbourne, Pu’er tea is enjoying an explosion of popularity, both for its taste and for its much-vaunted health-enhancing qualities – as an aid in digestion, in reducing blood pressure, cholesterol and lipid levels, in slimming and as an anti-carcinogenic, not to mention as a cure for hangovers.

Of course, there’s no need to go to San Francisco or Shanghai to experience the Pu’er tea phenomenon. In Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet the history, taste and health-promoting qualities of Pu’er are increasingly celebrated, with a plethora of tea shops and restaurants aimed primarily at Chinese tourists and customers, but also at overseas visitors. In the Yunnanese capital of Kunming, for example, two of the most popular hotels for visitors are called ‘The Hump’, and ‘The Camellia’, and the latter – which is rendered Cha Hua or ‘Tea Flower’ in Chinese – boasts a Cha Ma ‘Tea Horse’ Restaurant and Bar.

The former Tea-Horse Road itself, too, is increasingly being promoted as a cultural phenomenon and tourist attraction, aimed chiefly, but not exclusively, at the rapidly-expanding Chinese tourist market. ‘Tea-Horse tours’ are offered by travel companies operating from Kunming and Lijiang, Chengdu and Ya’an, among other cities. Sections of narrow, paved Tea-Horse Road, long since abandoned, are being restored and signposted for trekking, and old bazaars that once served the Tea-Horse trade are being rebuilt and promoted as tourist attractions.

Perhaps the best example of this is Shaxi Town in Yunnan’s Jianchuan County, not far from Lijiang. In 2001 Shaxi’s Sideng Jie Bazaar was listed by the World Monuments Fund (WMF) as an endangered site (together with, for example, Phnom Bakheng Temple at Angkor in Cambodia, Jaisalmer Fort in India, and the Tomb of Emperor Minh Mang at Hue in Vietnam). Today the Sideng Street Bazaar has been fully restored (in fact, largely reconstructed) and is being vigorously promoted by the Yunnan authorities as ‘the best-preserved bazaar on the Ancient Tea-Horse Road’ in all China.

… And as an Overland Link with India

Interestingly, the old Tea-Horse Road between Tibet and India, too, is enjoying a revival, and not just as a tourist attraction, but as a contemporary trade route. In 2003, after more than four decades of hostility, China agreed to recognise Sikkim’s accession to the Indian Union in exchange for India’s recognition of Tibet as an autonomous region within China. Next, on July 6, 2006, the barbed wire fence blocking the pass at Nathu La was dismantled, and the former caravan route between Lhasa and Gangtok finally reopened to trade.

Perched high in the Himalayas at 4,310m above sea level, Nathu La scarcely seems the easiest of options for a new overland trade route between China and India – and yet, surprisingly, it is just that. China currently shares only four viable land routes with India including, besides Nathu La: Lipulekh (5,350m) on the frontier between Uttarkhand and Tibet’s Burang County; Shipki La (4,694m) on the frontier between Himachal Pradesh and Tibet’s Zanda County; and the Karakoram Pass (5,540m) on the frontier between Indian-administered Kashmir and China’s Xinjiang province.

The first two passes lie far to the west, leading to Tibet’s vast and remote Ngari (Ali) Prefecture, while the third – the long-closed Karakoram Pass – is locked into one of Asia’s most intractable territorial disputes, sandwiched between the Chinese-occupied but Indian-claimed Aksai Chin, and the Indian-occupied but Pakistani-claimed Siachen Glacier, the ‘world’s highest battlefield’, where both countries maintain permanent military garrisons in camps at over 6,000m (20,000 ft).

Of these four passes, Nathu La has traditionally been the most important. In an indication of this, both China and India are actively upgrading their sections of the old Tea-Horse route via Nathu La, and plans are underway for a bus service between Lhasa and Gangtok. Still more ambitiously, Beijing has announced plans to extend the recently-completed Qinghai-Tibet Railway from Lhasa to Yadong, the last Tibetan town before Nathu La, by 2016.

For the present, trade and transit across the pass at Nathu La remains restricted to local Indian and Chinese merchants, but a memorandum has already been agreed opening the route to international tourism by 2012 at the latest. It is already relatively easy to follow the Ancient Tea-Horse Road from Pu’er and Ya’an to Lhasa and even to Yadong. In the near future, it will also be possible to travel overland, by this most venerable of trade routes, all the way from the Chinese tea plantations of Xishuangbanna and Sichuan to the Indian tea estates of Darjeeling and Kalimpong.

Text copyright © Andrew Forbes / CPA 2008.

This article is extracted from a work in progress [provisionally entitled Exploring China’s Ancient Tea-Horse Road] by Andrew Forbes and David Henley on the Ancient Tea-Horse Road between Yunnan, Sichuan, Tibet, Sikkim and Bengal.

Part of Trade Routes