The Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er gained the World Heritage Site status at the ongoing 45th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, becoming China's 57th entry to the list and the first World Heritage Site related to tea.
The newly named heritage site, located in Lancang Lahu autonomous county in Pu'er, Yunnan province, comprises five large-scale, well-preserved old tea forests, which stand 1,250 to 1,500 meters above the sea level; three protective barrier forests; and nine ancient villages in the old tea forests, which are mainly inhabited by Blang and Dai ethnic groups.
The cultural landscape was jointly created by the ancestors of the Blang people — who immigrated to the Jingmai Mountain in the 10th century AD and later discovered and domesticated wild tea trees — and the indigenous Dai people.
On the basis of long-standing practices, local people developed the understory growing technique, which involves allowing shrubs or trees that are small and sufficiently shade-tolerant to thrive under the canopies of taller trees.