Introduction

Tea, produced from a member of the Camellia genus of flowing plants, is a common consumer product in China, generates revenue for the national economy, and possesses social functions such as gift exchange in the Chinese practice of etiquette. Southwest China is regarded as one of the original places of tea cultivation. Some very old tea trees, planted around 1000 BC, are found in Sichuan and Yunnan (Chow and Kramer 1990; Wang 1992). Tea as a national commercial product can be dated back to the tea-horse trade between the Chinese dynasties and Tibetan empire. Today, the history of the tea-horse trade is being revived to explain the historical caravan trade between Yunnan and Tibet and is being used to expand the current tea market.

Of China's 55 official ethnic minorities, fifteen are indigenous to Yunnan. Under the western region development strategy implemented by the central government, the Yunnan provincial government has made great efforts to promote both tea trade and tourism. While the government focused on exploiting tea and ‘exotic ethnic culture’ for Yunnan's economic development, private businesses also began to recognize the lucrative trade in tea made in the ethnic minority areas, resulting in a variety of locally produced teas that have begun to be sold in restaurants and cafés.