The Great Tea Road in the Historical, Cultural Heritage and Present-Day of the Southern Provinces of China: Results of an Interdisciplinary Expedition in April 2026

The aim of the article is to summarize the primary results of the authors’ international expedition, which took place in the People’s Republic of China in April 2026 and was dedicated to the study of the historical and cultural heritage of the southern part of the Chinese section of the Great Tea Road, as well as the results of its revitalization in the context of the development of the tea industry in China and the modern interaction between China, Russia and Mongolia. Materials and methods. The empirical basis of the study was formed by the field data of the expedition: materials from museum collections ― exhibits, including visual sources (maps, diagrams, statistical tables, photographs, etc.), field observations of symbolic places in the cities along the route (tea plantations, factories, memorials, etc.), as well as interviews and group discussions on the topic of the expedition with representatives of local authorities, science, tea and tourism industries, museum institutions. The study, therefore, relied on a combination of methods of historical and source study, sociological and anthropological analysis. Results. The fieldwork, conducted over seven stages of the expedition, allowed firstly, to clarify the historical geography of the Great Tea Road within the Qing Empire, as well as the original and current roles of territories in southern China in the cultivation, processing, and transportation of tea; secondly, to compare the scale of trade along the Great Tea Road with that in the coastal ports of southern and southeastern China during the Qing period; thirdly, using specific production examples, to reveal the contemporary content of the “Three Aspects of Tea” (culture, technology, industry) ― Xi Jinping’s strategy for the development of the tea industry in China; and fourthly, to assess the significance of the Great Tea Road in the rhetoric and practice of the development of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. Conclusions. The expedition materials attest to the multiplicity of geographic points (areas) representing the southern sources of the Great Tea Road. The development of the overland route, the establishment of its hubs, and the scale of trade were significantly influenced, both directly and indirectly, by the Opium Wars of the 1840s and 1850s, which expanded the number of ports open to foreign trade and strengthened the presence of Western concessions in the largest cities of Qing China. The successful development of the tea industry in modern China is largely consistent not only with the deep-rooted nature of tea culture in the country but also with the implementation of a systematic approach to its development through the use of advanced technologies in tea cultivation, production, packaging, promotion, and distribution. At the same time, the historical and cultural heritage of the Great Tea Road is widely sought after as a significant component in shaping contemporary economic, sociocultural, and political interactions between the societies of the three countries.

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