Tea Below the Taller Trees

From a distance, the old tea groves of Jingmai can look like forest. Closer views reveal tea growing beneath taller trees. A 2023 forestry account describes three levels: trees above, shrubs with tea chiefly occupying this layer, and herbs below. The crop is therefore part of a vertical plant community rather than an uninterrupted field of low bushes.

In the tea-forest landscape inscribed by UNESCO in 2023, cultivation and forest care developed together. Communities adapted understorey planting to the mountain ecosystem and its monsoon climate. The trees are cultivated plants within a managed landscape; the taller canopy and surrounding woodland remain integral to that landscape.

The property combines five old tea-forest areas, nine traditional villages and three protective forests. These elements make the forest edge important. A village, a grove and the woodland beyond are adjacent parts of one land-use arrangement, connected through paths, harvest work and local governance.

A tea leaf is small enough to disappear in a mountain panorama. Looking through the layers restores its scale: first the canopy, then the tea branches, then the plants beneath them. The landscape’s distinctive form comes from maintaining those relationships while continuing to grow and gather a crop.