China’s old tea forests in Pu’er make coveted UNESCO list

The Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er, Yunnan Province, has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The decision, made at the 45th session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, made the old tea forests in southwestern China the country’s 57th World Heritage site and the first cultural landscape focusing on tea cultivation and culture to win world heritage status.

As a tea production area comprised of traditional villages situated within old tea groves surrounded by forests and tea plantations, the newly inscribed area consisting of five old tea forests, nine traditional villages, and three protective-partition forests, was “developed over a thousand years by the Blang and Dai peoples following practices that began in the 10th century,” according to UNESCO.

Boasting a historical tea culture reflecting the ecological value of harmony between man and nature, the Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er has formed a millennium-old sustainable tea garden ecosystem and is regarded as a microcosm of the wider development of Chinese tea culture and civilization.