Cherish the memory ofold roads.

Jyh Hsien Tseng

China Times, No. 47 Sec. 5, Nanjing-East, Taipei

Summary There are two old roads contact the history, one of them is tea-horse old road and the other is camel old road that I have found out,. Various compressed including Oianliang tea have long and interesting history. Pu'er tea originated at Yunnan district also has interesting histories on production, development and consumption.

Keywords tea road, compressed tea, Thousand Tael tea(Qianliang Tea)

"Thousand Tael Tea" (Qianliang Tea) is the king of the compressed teas. This tea has been preserved for more than half a century. This pillar-shaped tea was from Hunan Province, . According to the documents, this type of tea had no longer been produced since 1958. Therefore, the tea now we see has "lived" for more than 43 years. The bright soup color and gentle taste with a little sweet show the glamour of aged teas. It was the fad to drink the aged Pu-erh Tea that made "Thousand Tael Tea" reappear. There were two famous old silk roads in China's history. One was on land starting from the ancient "Chiang-an" city to central Asia developed by General Chang Chen during the Emperor Ou period, Han Dynasty. The other was at sea from China's southeast coasts to ship chinaware to or Europe. In addition to the two well-known silk roads, there existed two tea roads found in few pieces of China's ancient literature and my finding when visited some ancient tea mountains and places where compressed tea were grown or produced, including Ei-ou, Chang-dou, Pu-erh, Mt.Ou-ei, etc., found. These tea roads were to transport compressed teas and other goods from 'southwestern China and Mt. Ou-ei to Kyakhta, a Russian border city to trade. One Tea Road was called "Tea Horses Old Road" because they used horses and cattle to convey Pu-erh Tea on the road. Another road used camels or boats and was therefore called "Camels Old Road". And the latter was a new finding from my research on . At present, Mainland China's historians and tea culture workers have start to explore and recover the "Tea Horses Old Road". But the "Camels Old Road" still needs more people to unveil its mystery. Since Japan is a country with depth of culture and most of the people own the attitude to find the truth to the end, I hope that Japanese can do more to uncover the "Camels Old Road" in the future. After this international tea conference, I wish the research on compressed tea could become an independent tea studies apart from others. Teas that are processed and then compressed into fixed shapes, e.g. cube, bun or cake are classified as compressed tea. Perhaps it is easier to understand compressed tea if you change the term "compressed tea" with Pu-erh Tea. Pu-erh tea is a kind of compressed tea. There are many different kinds of compressed tea varying from the longest and heaviest "Thousand Tael Tea" weighting thirty to forty kilograms to recently most popular tea, "Little Tau Tea" only three grams. It is the fantasy and mystery of compressed tea.

Session I -26- The compressed method was the major manufacturing means in Tang Dynasty, China and most teas were compressed teas, asp. the tribute tea to the emperors. Some people got promoted because they made excellent tribute teas and were appreciated by the emperors. Japan's "Tea Tao" was originally from Tang Dynasty and its famous "powder tea" was made by grinding compressed tea at the beginning. Therefore, compressed tea is one of the ancestors of . Before Ming Dynasty, compressed tea had prevailed for almost four hundred years. In 1391 A.D. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty, issued an imperial edit that loose leaf tribute tea should be paid instead of the conventional compressed tea. Thereafter, you can only find minorities in Mainland China, , Russia and drink compressed tea. Those minorities al~o developed some special tea culture, e. g. "Tibetan Su Oil Tea", , pipe tea from Yunnan. Pu-erh did not re-prevail until ten years ago. From Hong Kong, Taiwan to other Asian countries, Europe and America, drinking Pu-erh has become a fad. It seems the time of Compressed tea ·has come back. The price of this tea keeps climbing. It was about ten years ago when I was deeply attracted by a 50-year-old cake tea in a fad of drinking Pu-erh Tea. Relevant reports and document about this tea were very scarce in Taiwan and Hongkong. Only you can hear little from people in tea business. The curiosity to know more about it made me start travel in the Yunnan Province, 'the southwestern frontier of China, to discover the origin of Pu-erg Tea. During the journey of searching, the six tea mountains where Pu-erhTea was prepared in the ancient times of China imprinted in my brain one by one. The deep feeling toward these mountains make distance no longer distance, although I am apart thousands of miles from. At "Ei-ban",what come to your eyes are old trees, straw houses and ancient stone-paved road~ used by horse gang. The scene is just like the paradise depicted in a very famous Chinese poem "Tao Fa Yun Ghi" written by Tao Yuan-ming, an outstanding poet in ancient China. "Ei-ban" was once a trading center of Pu-erh Tea in the past, but since its prosperity gone, this city almost became isolated from others. Nowadays, "Ei-ban" is rich with old people, pigs and old trees. The compressed tea's world has been lasting for more than three thousand years and covered over thousands of miles. It is formed by the connection of different tea roads at different times and places. This represents the depth of compressed tea culture. I wish my presentation is just a beginning and hope it can evoke your interest to like and study compressed tea. Maybe not so long in the future, compressed tea can regain its significant position in tea culture. Not only the two tea roads in Mainland China have their ineradicable meaning, but also Japan, Taiwan and oth'er countries, or areas with over hundreds of tea history have their own tea roads. Let us try to record all those old tea roads to become an important part of the world's tea culture.

-27- Session I