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Background: The history of tea cultivation in Mengai Country of the Hsishaung Banna Tai Autonomous Prefecture in Southeast China's Yunna province runs more than 1,700 years. The thick leaves and tender buds of the well-know Pu-Erh tea produce a most refreshing beverage. In the olk society when cruelly exploited by the KMT reactionary clique and tea mongors, many tea plantations in the area were neglected with the result that yield dropped year by year. The country's output of ta on the eve of liberation was down to 50.000 killogrammes. Since then, however, but expectially since the Great roletarian Cultural Revolution, tea growers of the various nationalities in Menghai have been helped by the state to develop the cultivation of ???u-Erh tea, and yield has gone up rapidly. Today, Menghai reaps more than 10 times as much Pu-Erh tea as in the early post-liberation days.

Tea spread out in boxes for drying
This is the air-drying workshop of the Menghai Tea factory. Built in 1952, the factory is one of the largest of the kind in Yunnan, where automatic processing installations turn out different grades of tea from fresh leaves each day.

Laboratory
The county's Tea Research Institute was also established after liberation, In recent years, the scientists and cultivators have been successful in developing superior strains as well as in explorating advanced methods of cultivation.

The current work here centres around the popularization of rational close planting and pest control.

Weighing tea with balance, tasting tea
Strict examination of the processed tea and tasting ensure the high qualities of Pu-Erh tea.

Sample of tea
More and more varieties of fine quality tea is being developed in Menghai for drinkers both at home and abroad.