May 21, 2026

Tea terraces in Sichuan Province, China

Today's image spotlights a drink that connects daily rituals to ancient landscapes. Just one look at the terraced tea fields of Sichuan Province, China, shows how deep those roots run. This misty region in southwest China is one of the earliest centres of tea culture, where people drank and cultivated tea more than 2,000 years ago. On nearby Mengding Mountain, a scholar named Wu Lizhen planted some of the world's first managed tea gardens during the Han Dynasty, laying the groundwork for generations of growers.

The steep terraces weren't built for beauty alone. They helped farmers manage rainfall, protect fragile soil and hand-pick tender leaves that later travelled far beyond Sichuan. For centuries, harvests from these hills moved along rugged trade routes toward Tibet, carried by porters across mountain passes. Even now, each harvest carries forward a legacy shaped by landscape, labour and time.