Yibang Tea Mountain in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna
Xishuangbanna Yibang Tea Mountain in Mengla County travel guide introduces the main attractions, entrance tickets booking, The best time to visit, How to Get there, the highlights, facts, history, photos, weather, accommodation, visiting routes, travel tips, tour maps of Yibang Tea Mountain in Xishuangbanna.
Located in the east of Mekong River(湄公河), Yibang Mountain (倚邦山) is one of the six ancient tea mountains that producing Pu’er tea (普洱茶). People usually believe good quality of Pu’er tea (普洱茶) relys on good conditions of the mountain as well as famous wine relys on fammous chateau.
Chinese Name: 勐腊倚邦山茶区
English Name: Yibang Tea Mountain in Mengla County, XishuangBanna
ADD:西双版纳州勐腊县的最北部
Web: http://www.puercn.com/special/yibangpuercha/
Due to the different geographical environment of the mountain, the taste of Pu’er tea (普洱茶) is also different. So, people usually use the name of the mountain to identify the taste of Pu’er tea (普洱茶) since the tea-horse ancient road (茶马古道) in history. The biggest and central town of Yibang (倚邦) area is Yibang Street, also known as Yibang. Pu-er tea producing from Yibang area is known as Yibang tea or Yibang Mountain (倚邦山) tea.
Geographical Location
Yibang Mountain (倚邦山) is located in the north end of Mengla country (勐腊县), xishuangbanna (西双版纳). Passing by southward along tea-horse ancient road (茶马古道), Simao (思茅), Yixiang (倚象), Mengwang (勐旺) and Buyuang River (补远江), you can enter Yibang area — about 360 square kilometers. With Manzhuang tea mountain (蛮砖茶山) in its south, Gedeng tea mountain (戈登茶山) in its west, and Yiwu tea mountain (易武茶山) in its east, Yibang Mountain (倚邦山) contains Xikong (习崆), Jiabu (架布), Mangong(曼拱) and other hills in its range.
Ancient Tea Garden in Yibang Mountain
The total area of ancient tea gardens Yibang Mountain (倚邦山) still preserves ancient tea garden about 2950 mu (about 1,964,700 square meters) in total. The ancient tea trees are generally densely branched, with more branching levels and up to four classes. Density of tea trees varies from 90 to 250 trees per mu (1 mu equals 666.67 square meters). The height of tea can ranges from 3 to 7 meters, and rooting zone around 30 to 100 centimeters. Those tea trees have flat and wedge-shaped leaf, with orderly and leaf vein, and flat leaf margin. Amazingly, the census takers found ancient tea garden of hundreds of mus. Those trees are semi-tree form, the vast majority of the tea leaves are of dark green or green color, and are aged from 300 to 500.
There are 19 natural villages in ancient Yibang tea district, covering an area of 360 square kilometers. Yibang ancient tea mountain area has large difference in altitude. The highest point, mountain temple, is 1950 meters, and the lowest point, the confluence of Mozhe River and Xiaohei River (磨者河与小黑江), is only 565 meters. The famous tea producing areas in Yibang district are Yibang, Mansong, Xikong, Jiabu, Menggong(倚邦、曼松、嶍崆、架布、曼拱) and so on. The tea area has a long history of tea planting. In an ancient tea garden of Mangong(曼拱), there is still an ancient tea tree with a diameter of 1.2 meters at the base, a height of 6 meters and a tree age of about 500 years. So far, Malishu, Yibang and Mangong(麻粟树,倚邦曼拱) are the places with the most ancient tea trees.
Malishu village (麻栗树村), located in the west of Yibang, is 22 kilometers away from the road that directs from Xiangming to Yibang Road and then branches 2 kilometers to the left. There are 25 households in the village and all the residents are Yi minority, some of which have moved back because of the high price of tea. There are more than 100 mu (about 66667 square meters) of ancient tea trees around the village, which produces about 1,500 kilograms of spring tea each year, and 1,500 kilograms of Yushui tea (tea produced in summer) and Guhua tea (tea produced during rice flower blossom to harvest). A part of the produced tea is ordered by specially-assigned guest, and the other part is sold by the villagers themselves. The tea trees in the village are a mixture small leaf ones and big leaf ones. None of the trees have been stunted and all of them are grow naturally. The largest tea tree is about half a kilometer away from the village, with a diameter of more than 30 centimeters at the base of the trunk. In this tea garden, there are many large tea trees with a diameter of 10 to 20 centimeters and a height of more than 3 meters.
Mangong(曼拱) is also a tea area where there are more old tea trees, and still, there are many old tea gardens in its surrounding villages. A lot of tea trees grow in the forest. The ecological environment is pretty good, and the trees haven’t been stunted. And the hill with best environment for tea trees in Mangong(曼拱) area is called Big Forest.
Big Forest is also called Big Black Forest, standing about 4 kilometers away from Mangong(曼拱), and no cars can arrive at the forest. But it is a place worthy of its name, for its elevation(100 to 200 meters higher than Mangong(曼拱)), big trees ( a considerable amount of trees that are so big that only several people work together to hug one), forest coverage rate, and also, tea trees.
Big Forest belongs to Mangong(曼拱) village’s second production team. There are about 80 mu (about 53,334 square meters) of ancient tea gardens, in which a considerable portion of the tea trees is small leaf tree. There might be dozens of large tea trees with diameter of about 20 centimeters in about 1 mu (about 666.6 square meters) when it’s tree intensive place. Because of Big Forest’s excellent tea growth environment and high quality of the tea, there are pretty amount of tea merchant would rather buy the tea produced from Big Forest with a higher price than Mangong’s(曼拱).
Translated By Gao Xia/高霞
