The drive from Southwest China's Sichuan province's Mabian county seat to Baixiang village is a test of one's limit for car sickness, full of sharp turns that wind upward for 11 kilometers. But roll the car windows down and everything is worth it: the sweet air permeated by the terraced tea bushes following the mountain's contours like the whorls of a giant fingerprint.
Before you lies 1,600 mu (107 hectares) of contiguous tea gardens, cascading down from 1,100 to 1,400 meters. Tea pickers dot the hillside, bamboo baskets on their backs, hands fluttering across the leafy surface to pinch off the most prized early spring buds in late March.
"Our tea garden sits at a high altitude, so the tea is just starting to sprout," says He Yingjun, who presides over the sprawling plantation.
"With the big temperature swing between day and night, the tea accumulates more beneficial compounds. The secret to good Mabian tea is right here," he says as he pinches a plump bud.
Four decades ago, this was a barren hillside without so much as a path. Then his father began planting. Today, it has become a calling card for the tea industry in the Mabian Yi autonomous county, and a lifeline for the people who live here.
His father did not start from nothing. Historical accounts show tea has been grown on these mountains for almost 2,000 years, since the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). Nestled in the Xiaoliangshan Mountains, home to the Yi ethnic group, Mabian was a key node on the ancient tea-horse route, where people of the Yi and Han ethnic groups lived side by side, trading tea for horses.
In the early 1980s, as China's reform and opening-up gained momentum and market demand for tea outweighed supply, He's father contracted a 70-mu collective tea garden in his hometown. He spent more than a decade learning from local tea masters.
They traveled far and wide together, even going to the provincial capital Chengdu to meet clients from abroad, He says.
"His mentor treated him well and took him everywhere," He adds. When the tea master passed away in the 1990s, his father inherited both his mentor's business connections and approach to tea cultivation.
The family's full commitment to tea came in 2006, when He's father set his sights on the barren hillside in Baixiang village.
"There was nothing — no road, no electricity, just wasteland," He recalls. The choice was simple, because it was only 11 km from the county seat, meeting the "half-hour rule" for tea processing. Fresh leaves must reach the factory within 30 minutes after picking. If they sit longer, they begin to heat up and ferment in unwanted ways, turning the bright green leaves dull and muddying the flavor, He explains.
"You then lose the freshness. Once that happens, no amount of skill or processing in the factory can bring it back," he adds.
When He was discharged from military service in 2008, he returned to Mabian. "My father was getting older, and someone had to carry on," he says.
He now manages the tea plantation and production. His father, with a knack for distinguishing Mabian tea from any other, oversees quality. Over the years, the family has witnessed the transformation of Mabian tea from backyard production to modern plantations.
Today, their family business employs 30 to 40 people year-round. During peak harvest, they have 400 to 500 pickers, and pay over 2 million yuan ($294,286) in wages annually.
In 2020, Mabian was designated "the home of Yi tea" by the China International Tea Culture Institute, and the Yi tea brand was formally established.
