The Primary Research On Xikang Border Area Tea During The Republic Of China

The research on the history of tea is a focus in contemporary history research in recent years. But Xikang border area tea, which had ever played an important role in history, didn't get a reasonable attention. The scholars concentrate on the research about the management of tea in the past dynasties, the trade between Tibetans and Han people, the tea-horse ancient Road, the business in the border area of southwest, policies towards nationalities, the folk customs of Tibet and so on. Their researches are related to Xikang border area more or less, but they didn't go deep into the research of Xikang border tea, let it alone the specialized research on Xikang border tea. Their research of Xikang border tea mainly focused on the management of tea and the techniques of tea-making. Xikang border tea will be inspected in this paper, especially the period of the Republic of China.In history, the horse-tea trade, or the border tea company built by Zhao Erfeng during his managing time, even the management of the border area during the Republic of China time, all of them seem to show that the most important function of Xikang border area tea was to help them manage the border area. However, besides the politic value, the big economic value of it can not be ignored yet. In other words, Tibetan need to consume a large amount of tea for the factors of climate and region. On the contrary, Han people still need to buy Tibetan's horse and specialties for the reasons of war and life. Only the government in the past dynasties simply regarded the Xiikang border tea as a counter in maintaining the ethnic...