Old ballad sheds light on tea trade
Print Edition
A ballad sung by elderly people in north China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region has given Chinese historians a new insight into a 17th-century tea trading route between China and Russia.
The discovery was made during a historical survey in Hohhot, the capital, a research team said.
The ballad tells how traders purchased and transported tea from southeast China’s Fujian Province to Russia via Mongolia.
“From south to north I carry the tea/ Thousands of kilometers it is to be/ I hire a porter on Mount Wuyi/ In Chong’an County we put it on ships ...” it begins, before giving a detailed account of the route.
“The Tea Road,” a trade route comparable to the ancient Silk Road, ran 5,000 kilometers — from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, famous for their tea plantations, to the Russian town of Kyakhta.
The traders described in the ballad were employed by Dashengkui, the biggest China-Mongolia trade company, said Wang Dafang, head of the research team.
“The discovery is hugely significant to research of the tea trade,” said Wang.
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