The Tea Porters of Sichuan

Tea porters (Chinese: chábēifū) in Sichuan, Western China.

Early 20th century.

Because the labor of Sichuan’s poor was far cheaper than maintaining mules or horses, multitudes were hired to haul compressed tea bricks up the steep mountain passes toward Tibet. It is estimated that between the late 18th and mid-20th centuries, as many as three million porters trudged toward the border markets. This human tide, laden with heavy cargo, flowed primarily toward Dartsedo (Kangding), the central transit hub for Chinese tea bound for the monasteries of Lhasa and the nomadic camps of the high grasslands.

Lean and slight of frame—and with nearly a third of them reliant on opium to dull the pain—these men spent weeks on the trail, carrying up to 200 kilograms of tea strapped to their backs.

Many never made it home.

“The grain cake is hard to chew,

Black as burnt residue,

…The crowd resting by the road,

Like the unburied dead, beyond counting…

Pushing tea along mountain paths,

A hole in the snow,

Up the trail.”

In the photos:

Tea porters in Western Sichuan, early 20th century.

A tea cake from the Bingdao region, Lincang, Yunnan (2017).

This tea is compressed into a disc similar to the historical bricks of Sichuan. Today, a high-quality cake of this kind, weighing about 350 grams, can fetch $200 or more.