In a high-elevation forest on Jingmai Mountain, dawn broke over a green peak, bathing an ancient tea tree in warm light. A four-foot-wide trunk along with enormous branches, stretching up into a canopy of leaves, gave it an imposing bearing—nothing like the smaller tea shrubs often packed into tight rows on commercial farms throughout China. But this tree, deep within the south-western Yunnan Province, was different. And it served a different purpose altogether.
A married couple named Ai Rong, 41, and Ke Lanfang, 36, had gathered with their elderly parents in front of the tree, chanting a prayer in the Blang people’s language, spoken by the Indigenous community throughout this region where five tea forests—collectively the oldest and largest on the planet—are cultivated. To the untrained eye, the tree might have…
