The Rise and Fall of the Six Tea Mountains: From Thronging Crowds to Abandonment

Walking along Yibang's flagstone street, it's hard to imagine that this little lane, under 500 meters long and lined with low tile-roofed houses, was once one of the most important sources of Qing-dynasty tribute pu'er. The story of the Six Ancient Tea Mountains is a long road from bustle to overgrown weeds and, slowly, back to life. For which six mountains they are and what each tastes like, start with The Six Ancient Tea Mountains and Yiwu.

The Golden Age: Qianlong to Daoguang

After the Qing established Pu'er Prefecture in 1729 and began sending pu'er as tribute, this mountain area on the east bank of the Lancang River became a place prized by both the court and tea merchants. Merchants from Sichuan, Jiangxi, Hunan, and the Shiping area of Yunnan poured into the mountains, clearing tea gardens alongside the local peoples and setting up firms to buy tea. Qing writers spoke of "several hundred thousand people entering the mountains to make tea," and on Yibang's street you can still see the remains of a Chuanzhu Temple and a Shiping guild hall, marks left by that wave of migration.

A figure often cited in local tea history research: in the mid-Qing, the Six Tea Mountains produced about 80,000 dan of dry tea a year, rising to over 100,000 dan in the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras. The century-plus from Qianlong to Daoguang is generally regarded as the Six Tea Mountains' most prosperous period.

During this time, Yibang was the center of official tribute tea, and tea from the Mansong area was reserved for the palace. Yiwu gradually became a major hub for collecting and processing tea; one account holds that about 70% of the maocha from the Six Tea Mountains in the Qing passed through Yiwu. The tea steles Yibang left behind, dated 1738, 1848, and 1888, record official rules on tea prices, taxes, and wages, showing that the tea industry was already managed on a considerable scale.

The First Cracks: Epidemic and Feuds

The mountains' prosperity depended heavily on people. In 1845–1846 (the Daoguang era), an epidemic broke out on Yibang tea mountain. A stele describes the loss among tea pickers as "of every three pickers, two died," and that year's tribute tea could barely be finished on time. The steles also record that the tea mountains were rife with miasmic disease, wild beasts, and bandits, a serious threat to workers from outside.

Mangzhi's blow came from human conflict. At the end of the Xianfeng era, serious armed feuding broke out in Mangzhi. Tea farmers fled, large tea gardens went to waste, and production only gradually recovered in the 1980s. Mansa, another of the six, also declined amid natural and human disasters, and neighboring Yiwu took over, becoming what people later called "the first of the Six Tea Mountains."

Trade Routes Shift: Menghai Takes Over

What really pushed the Six Ancient Tea Mountains to the margins was transportation. During the Republican era, a new tea route opened heading west through Burma and India into Tibet: from Menghai via Kengtung, Rangoon, Calcutta, and Kalimpong to Lhasa, switching between trucks, steamships, trains, and pack horses along the way. It was much faster than the traditional caravan route north.

This route spurred the rise of tea mountains on the west bank of the Lancang River, Nannuo, Nanqiao, Mengsong, Jingmai, Bulang, and Bada, which the tea world calls the "Six Tea Mountains Beyond the River." Menghai also replaced Pu'er as the main tea trading hub of southern Yunnan. The Six Ancient Tea Mountains on the east bank were far from the new route, and tea merchants and capital gradually flowed to Menghai. This shift is covered in more detail in Fohai in the Republican Era.

War and Upheaval in the Late Qing and Republic

From the late Qing through the Republic, Western powers moved in and social upheaval never let up, and Yunnan's tea industry declined overall. One statistic puts Yunnan's total tea garden area before 1949 at only about 250,000 mu. Private tea firms on the mountains closed one after another, many gardens went untended, and the tea trees disappeared into the forest.

Yibang's decline hit bottom in the 1940s. According to local accounts, fighting broke out in the surrounding area around 1942 and Yibang's street was destroyed by a great fire, reducing most of the old guild halls and firms to ruins. Accounts differ on the details, but "a once-great tea town withered in the flames of war" is the common description.

Yibang: From Center to Small Village

Put these factors together and Yibang's transformation makes sense:

• Population loss: The epidemic sharply reduced the number of tea pickers, and outside workers no longer wanted to come.
• End of the tribute system: Tribute tea stopped at the end of the Qing, and Yibang lost its biggest "customer."
• Trade routes shifted: The new tea route started from Menghai, and the east-bank mountains were no longer trading hubs.
• War and fire: The fighting of the 1940s badly damaged the old street and its firms.

Today Yibang is a small village in Xiangming Township. Its old street, flagstone paths, and surviving old buildings have become a place where tea lovers come to explore the history of tribute tea.

The Recent Revival

After the 1980s, tea gardens on Mangzhi and other mountains gradually recovered. In the 1990s, tea people from Taiwan and Hong Kong went to Yiwu in search of the old tea firms' craft, and from 1994 on, people began commissioning handmade tea cakes there, bringing the name "Yiwu" back into tea lovers' view. That story is in Pu'er and Taiwan. In the 2000s, with the rise of ancient-tree (gushu) tea and mountain-origin tea, the old gardens of Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, and Gedeng were valued again. Tea farmers restored their old trees and built primary processing workshops, and the old tea trails and streets became destinations for tea culture tourism.

From crowds pouring into the mountains, to overgrown weeds, to today's craze for mountain-origin tea, the rise and fall of the Six Tea Mountains is almost a miniature history of Yunnan's tea industry.

FAQ

When were the Six Tea Mountains at their peak? Generally, from the Qianlong to the Daoguang era of the Qing. In the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras, annual output of dry tea exceeded 100,000 dan, with Yibang as the center of tribute tea and Yiwu as the main trading hub.

Yibang used to be famous. Why did it decline? There are 4 main reasons: the 1845–1846 epidemic that sharply reduced the number of tea pickers, the end of the tribute system in the late Qing, trade routes recentering on Menghai in the Republican era, and the war and fire of the 1940s.

Do the Six Tea Mountains still produce tea? Yes. Tea gardens gradually recovered after the 1980s, and with the rise of ancient-tree tea in the 2000s, the old gardens of Yibang, Mangzhi, Manzhuan, Gedeng, and Yiwu have all regained attention.

Why did Yiwu later become more famous than Yibang? Yiwu is larger and was already a trading hub in the Qing. In the Republican era, many well-known old tea firms were based there, and after the 1990s it drew renewed attention for its Hao-grade vintage teas and handmade tea cakes.