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Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet

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From the Tang period, tea from the south-western provinces was carried by mule and porter into Tibet and exchanged for horses, which Chinese dynasties needed in quantity for cavalry and could not breed adequately themselves. The Song state formalised the exchange through dedicated tea and horse offices, and the arrangement persisted under the Ming and Qing. The first long-distance movement of tea was therefore overland, mountainous and strategic — a state procurement system rather than a maritime luxury trade.

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Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 3
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 37 blocks · 1 evidence · 39 related

  1. Story
  2. From the Tang period, tea from the south-western provinces was carried by mule and porter into Tibet and exchanged for horses, which Chinese dynasties needed in quantity for cavalry and could not breed adequately themselves. The Song state formalised the exchange through dedicated tea and horse offices, and the arrangement persisted under the Ming and Qing. The first long-distance movement of tea was therefore overland, mountainous and strategic — a state procurement system rather than a maritime luxury trade.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Tea
  5. Yunnan
  6. Tea Horse Road (Chamagudao)
  7. Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet
  8. Connections
  9. Tea Horse Road (Chamagudao)
  10. Tea
  11. Yunnan
  12. Tea
  13. Yunnan
  14. Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet
  15. Camellia sinensis
  16. Silver
  17. London
  18. Tea Horse Road (Chamagudao)
  19. Canton (historical) — modern Guangzhou
  20. English (later British) East India Company
  21. Tea culture
  22. Tea buried in the Han Yangling mausoleum
  23. Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet
  24. Tea first shipped to Europe by sea
  25. Qing trade confined to Canton
  26. Boston Tea Party
  27. Commutation Act cuts British tea duty
  28. Robert Bruce shown tea growing in Assam
  29. East India Company's China monopoly ends; Tea Committee founded
  30. First Assam tea auctioned in London
  31. The Opium Wars
  32. Treaty of Nanking
  33. Camellia sinensis
  34. Tea Horse Road (Chamagudao)
  35. Tea-for-horse exchange between China and Tibet
  36. Evidence
  37. Phytolith and biomolecular analysis identifies tea in the Han Yangling mausoleum (c. 2nd century BCE) and at Gurgyam, Ngari, western Tibet (c. 2nd–3rd century CE), evidencing early tea consumption and overland movement.
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/atlas?object=EVENT_TEA_HORSE_TRADE_INSTITUTIONALISED&experience=EVENT_TEA_HORSE_TRADE_INSTITUTIONALISED