The Ancient Tea Horse Road: Pu'er on Horseback

The story of pu'er is inseparable from a road: the Ancient Tea Horse Road. It wasn't a single road, but a network of ancient trade routes spread across the mountains of southwest China, carrying tea from Yunnan and Sichuan through high mountains and gorges to Tibet, and on to Nepal, India, and Southeast Asia.

Trading Tea for Horses

The name "Tea Horse Road" comes from the "tea-horse trade": central and southwestern China needed horses from the plateau, while the people of the plateau needed tea. Records of this exchange go back to the Tang and Song dynasties, and it continued for more than a thousand years, until roads became widespread in the mid-20th century and the mule caravans gradually faded away.

Two Main Routes

• The Yunnan–Tibet route: Starting from Pu'er and Xishuangbanna in Yunnan, it passed through Dali, Lijiang, and Shangri-La (Zhongdian) into Tibet, finally reaching Lhasa and extending on to South Asia.
• The Sichuan–Tibet route: Starting from the Ya'an area of Sichuan, it entered Tibet by way of Kangding.

Pu'er was one of the key starting points of the Yunnan–Tibet route, and remnants of the Ancient Tea Horse Road still survive today in Simao District, Pu'er City.

The Caravan's Journey

A caravan (mabang) was a trading party of muleteers and their mules and horses. A single journey often took several months, crossing mountain passes thousands of meters high and passing through deep valleys and rushing rivers. They traveled by day and camped at night at relay stations or in the open.

Caravan life was hard and dangerous, but it linked the towns and villages along the way, driving exchanges of culture, language, and goods.

Why Press the Tea Tight?

For long-distance transport, loose tea had obvious drawbacks: it's bulky, breaks easily, and doesn't stand up to damp. Steaming the tea soft and pressing it into cakes, bricks, and tuo solved these problems:

• Smaller volume: The same horse could carry more tea.
• Less breakage: Compressed tea could withstand the jolting.
• Easy to measure: Each cake or brick had a fixed weight, convenient for trade.
• Easy to pack: Wrapped in bamboo-sheath bundles, it sat securely on a horse's back.

That is where pu'er's tradition of compression comes from. The cakes, bricks, and tuo we hold today still carry a trace of the caravan era.

Transformation on the Road

A widely told story goes like this: over the long journey, the tea went through changes in temperature and humidity, and by the time it reached its destination its color and taste had changed, becoming more mellow. This "transformation on the road" is thought to be one of the things that first made people aware of pu'er's post-fermentation character.

The Ancient Road Today

Highways and railroads replaced the caravans, but the Ancient Tea Horse Road hasn't been forgotten. Old towns along the route, such as Lijiang and Shaxi, still preserve caravan-era buildings and flagstone paths, drawing many travelers.

Faraway Places in a Cup of Tea

The next time you brew a piece of compressed pu'er, think about it: in the days before highways, how many mountain trails would a cake like this have traveled with a caravan before reaching the person drinking it?

Life on the Ancient Tea Horse Road

Along the caravan routes were fixed relay stations and rest stops providing lodging, fodder, and supplies. Towns along the way prospered from the passing traders, giving rise to markets and trading houses. Some places still have old flagstone paths, with the hollows worn by horses' hooves still visible in the stones.

The caravans carried more than tea: on the return trip they brought back mountain goods, furs, salt, and other supplies. The Ancient Tea Horse Road was therefore also a route of cultural exchange, with language, religion, and art all spreading along it.

Tea on the Plateau

On the plateau, tea is an indispensable part of daily life. Tibetan butter tea is made by boiling compressed tea into a strong brew, then adding butter and salt and churning it together. This way of drinking tea is closely tied to the plateau diet, and it made tea an essential commodity of plateau life.

Seven Cakes to a Tong, Taxed by the Tong

The Qing dynasty's management of Yunnan tea was closely tied to how tea was transported along the Ancient Tea Horse Road. The Collected Statutes and Precedents of the Great Qing (Da Qing Huidian Shili) records that in the 13th year of Yongzheng (1735), it was decreed that Yunnan tea would be packed seven round cakes to a tong (bundle), each tong weighing 49 taels, and taxed by the tong, with a set number of tong making up one "yin," and tea permits (chayin) issued to control quantities. The seven-cake tong was just right for caravans to load and for officials to count.

The Weight on a Horse's Back

The traditional account is that one tong weighed about 2.5 kg, 12 tong made a basket of about 30 kg, and one horse carried two baskets, about 60 kg. These figures may not be a strict historical record, but they show well why compressed tea suited the caravans: compact, uniform in weight, easy to count, and unlikely to break apart over mountain after mountain.

The Road South

The Ancient Tea Horse Road mostly brings to mind the routes north to Tibet. But pu'er also had trade routes to the south and west: in the Republican era, a new route opened from Menghai through Myanmar and India to Tibet; and before 1949, pu'er was also shipped via Myanmar and Vietnam to Hong Kong, becoming one of the sources of the pot of pu'er served in Hong Kong-style teahouses. Further reading: Pu'er and Taiwan.

Pu'er on the Ancient Tea Horse Road

Caravans setting out from Pu'er and Simao went north through Dali and Lijiang into Tibetan areas, west through Myanmar toward India and Tibet, and south through Laos and Vietnam to Southeast Asia. By the time a cake of tea from a Yunnan mountain reached its destination, it had often been on the road for several months, quietly transforming along the way.

Relay Stations on the Ancient Road

Caravan journeys depended on a relay of stations and villages along the route: at the stations they changed horses, rested, and resupplied, and also traded goods and news. Some stations later grew into markets and towns, and many of Yunnan's old towns today were once important points on the Ancient Tea Horse Road.

FAQ

Can you still walk the Ancient Tea Horse Road? Some sections and old towns have become tourist attractions you can visit, but most of the old road has been replaced by highways or has disappeared into the mountain forests.

Is pu'er still transported by horse today? These days it's mostly transported by truck. But on some ancient tea mountains with poor road access, mules and horses are still used to carry fresh leaves down the mountain during the picking season.

Why does pu'er come seven cakes to a tong? The Qing dynasty already had a rule of "seven round cakes to a tong," taxed by the tong, which made transport and counting easy, and the tradition has continued down to today's qizi bing ("seven-sons cake").