Yunnan Teas

Yunnan province in southwestern China is one of the world’s most important regions in the history of tea, lying within the broader area associated with the origins and early domestication of the tea plant. For centuries, ethnic communities such as the Bulang, Dai, Hani, Wa, and Lahu cultivated and used tea from the region’s forests and ancient gardens. Yunnan later became famous for Pu-Erh tea, which was compressed for transport along the network of caravan routes known as the Tea Horse Road, connecting Yunnan with Tibet, other parts of China, and Southeast Asia. Traditionally, Pu-Erh tea was produced as what we now call sheng (raw) Pu-Erh, which could transform naturally with age; shou (ripe) Pu-Erh, made using accelerated wet-piling fermentation, was developed only in the 1970s. Yunnan also gave rise to Dian Hong, its distinctive malty, honeyed black tea, developed in the late 1930s.