Tea trees, coffee plants, rainforests, peacocks… It's hard to imagine that in the low-latitude, high-temperature region of Lincang, there are mountains named after “snow,” such as Mengku Great Snow Mountain, Bangdong Great Snow Mountain, Yongde Great Snow Mountain, and more.

The many great snow mountains in Lincang do not have an official ranking, but in the hearts of tea enthusiasts, Mengku Great Snow Mountain holds a special place. This is not only because it is home to many famous mountains and villages in the Pu'er tea world but also because deep within the mountain lies a prehistoric wild ancient tea tree forest covering 12,700 mu (about 847 hectares).

In the first article about the Lincang tea area, let us revisit this lush and verdant natural sanctuary – Mengku Great Snow Mountain.

Mengku Great Snow Mountain tea Tree Cluster

Mengku Great Snow Mountain is located in the west of Mengku Town, Shuangjiang County, bordering Gengma Dai and Wa Autonomous County. It is separated by a river from Ailao Mountain and Wuliang Mountain, and is the main peak of the north-south running Bangma Mountain. Bangma Mountain is an extension of the Nujiang Range of the Hengduan Mountains towards the south. Here, the warm, humid air currents from the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean converge, bringing a warm and humid climate and abundant rainfall, making Mengku Great Snow Mountain a paradise for flora and fauna.

Since ancient times, Mengku Great Snow Mountain has been an inaccessible natural secret realm. Even experienced hunters dare not easily venture into this mysterious forest. This is not only due to the mountain's revered status among the locals but also because of the exceptionally dense vegetation, especially the dense bamboo forests (locally known as “arrow bamboo”) growing halfway up the mountain, which act as a barrier protecting the area and preventing people from entering. As a result, the wild ancient tea tree cluster on the mountain has remained isolated from the outside world.

However, in the mid-1990s, the arrow bamboo forests suddenly began to flower and die off in large areas, leaving Mengku Great Snow Mountain without its outermost natural barrier. People were then able to catch a glimpse of the true appearance of the Mengku Great Snow Mountain tea tree cluster. (Note: The cause of the bamboo flowering and death remains unknown. There are hypotheses such as the life cycle theory, free radical theory, and pathological theory, but none can explain all the phenomena associated with bamboo flowering. We will not delve into this here.)

On March 20, 1997, villagers from Wujia Village, including Zhang Zhengyun, went up the Great Snow Mountain to gather herbs and accidentally discovered a hidden wild tea tree cluster in the depths of the primeval forest, leaving a note that “the largest one requires three people to encircle.” In August of the same year, villagers from Dufuzhai Village, including Tang Yujin, also discovered a wild ancient tea tree cluster in the area, recording that the largest one had a trunk circumference of 3.25 meters and a chest circumference of 3.1 meters.

In September 1997, the Shuangjiang County government organized relevant departments twice to conduct preliminary investigations of the Mengku Great Snow Mountain wild ancient tea tree cluster, recognizing its significant value. The following March, led by Deputy Commissioner Chen Xunru of the former Lincang Administrative Commission, a team was organized to conduct a second investigation of the wild ancient tea tree cluster. They preliminarily counted around ten thousand ancient tea trees, mostly over a thousand years old, attracting widespread attention from academia.

On December 8, 2002, after joint investigation and authentication by experts in botany and tea from research institutions such as the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Yunnan Agricultural University, it was determined that the Mengku Great Snow Mountain wild ancient tea tree cluster is one of the birthplaces of tea trees.

The wild ancient tea tree cluster in Mengku Great Snow Mountain is distributed between 2,200 and 3,000 meters above sea level, covering an area of approximately 12,700 mu. The base circumference of the No. 1 ancient tea tree is 3.5 meters, while the No. 2 ancient tea tree has a base circumference of 2.9 meters. It is estimated that both are around 2,500 years old. This cluster is currently the highest-altitude, widest-dispersed, and most densely populated wild ancient tea tree cluster globally. It serves as a living repository of tea germplasm resources and an important original habitat for the origin, evolution, variation, and differentiation of tea plants worldwide.

Further research indicates that the Mengku Great Snow Mountain wild ancient tea trees belong to the Dali species (Latin name: Camellia taliensis). While more primitive than the Pu'er species in terms of evolution, they possess the morphological characteristics and functional components of tea trees, such as polyphenols, amino acids, and Caffeine, making them suitable for making tea for consumption. Due to their high altitude, these tea trees are also characterized by strong resistance, particularly to cold, making them valuable resources for resistance breeding and molecular biology studies.

The discovery of the Mengku Great Snow Mountain wild ancient tea tree cluster is of significant value not only for further verifying that tea originated in Yunnan, China, and for studying the origin, evolution, classification, and germplasm innovation of tea trees but also for providing crucial physical samples for international ancient tea research. It is of utmost importance to China's strategic position and discourse power in international research and development of tea plants.

Some even argue that this primeval tea tree cluster is the oldest and most representative cluster of wild ancient tea trees of the arboreal type yet discovered. It can serve as compelling evidence that Yunnan is the center of origin for tea trees and that China is the birthplace of tea domestication and cultivation. These ancient tea trees are “living fossils” that record the evolution of arboreal tea trees, making them truly “the source of the world's teas” within “the source of the world's teas.”

Within the wild ancient tea tree cluster, there is an incredibly rich and undisturbed collection of native flora and fauna. This includes protected animals such as green peacocks, white-throated laughingthrushes, red junglefowl, white-bellied pheasants, and red-bellied pheasants, totaling 87 species of wildlife, 40 species of mammals, and 47 species of birds. The plant resources include 62 families, 145 genera, and 288 species.

The protection provided by the high-altitude dense forest, a unique ecosystem, and the favorable natural conditions allow the wild tea trees to grow quietly without disturbance, bringing us the tea aroma of prehistory. To better protect this area, in 2009, the Shuangjiang County government issued regulations stipulating that, except for scientific research needs, no form of picking of the Mengku Great Snow Mountain wild ancient tea trees is allowed.

Lush and Verdant Natural Sanctuary

What is even more awe-inspiring and moving is that on this land favored by nature, Mengku Great Snow Mountain is not a solitary case. Near the Tropic of Cancer, the Nujiang, Wuliang, and Ailao Mountains run longitudinally through the area, with the Lancang River flowing through them. This not only forms a landscape of high mountains and deep valleys, but as the altitude increases, animals, plants, and microorganisms also exhibit corresponding vertical distribution characteristics.

For example, in Yongde Great Snow Mountain, the vertical vegetation zones are even more diverse. From bottom to top, they include monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forests, semi-humid evergreen broad-leaved forests, mesothermal evergreen broad-leaved forests, cool