At a garden located halfway up Jingmai Mountain in Lancang Lahu autonomous county, Pu'er city, Yunnan province — an area that boasts the biggest ancient tea tree plantations in China — Su Guowen grabs a handful of drying tea from the ground, smells it and knows immediately that it is not ready.

This is a skill that most members of the Blang ethnic group living in the Jingmai Mountain area have mastered — from teenagers to the elderly. Su is a 40th-generation tribal leader of the Blang people, an ethnic group that has cultivated and utilized tea trees for more than 1,800 years.

The 80-year-old sips a cup of tea sent by an 86-year-old villager who, just a day previously, climbed onto a venerable old tree to pick the freshest leaves.

"It's easy for us to cultivate tea trees, pick tea leaves by climbing onto the trees and make tea. These activities have been part of our daily lives since we were kids," the tribal leader explains. After his morning tea, Su starts preparing for a coming annual ritual in April. This grand ceremony is meant to pay respect to the tea trees and to honor the tribe's ancestors before harvesting the gifts of nature.

Besides the Blang, other ethnic groups living in the area — including the Dai, Hani and Va — also hold rituals to worship their own "tea tree spirits" and ancestors.

These ethnic groups all have a long history of tea cultivation and unique tea cultures. Although they have developed distinctively, they still share the same mission: protecting the ancient plantations passed down by their forefathers.

"Our ancestors left behind the message that we must take care of our tea trees like they are our own eyes. With such a long history of tea tree cultivation, the practice has become an indispensable part of our lives," says Su.

The Blang people regard the symbol of tea, in the form of a bud and two leaves, as their totem. The pattern is found on the roofs of their two-storied dwellings, differentiating them from the nearby Dai villages, where roofs are decorated with ox horns.

They even weave tea leaf patterns on to the heart area of the costumes worn at ceremonies. They maintain a relationship with nature that has lasted for centuries — tea trees are cultivated in forests while farmland and human settlements are placed far away to avoid interference.

Jingshan Temple in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, plays host to regular ceremonies to help visitors better understand traditional tea culture. Its tea ceremony is included in UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

According to Su, the Blang people's utilization of tea has experienced four phases. At first, their ancestors considered tea a kind of medicine. Later, they cooked it with food or even ate it. Several hundred years ago, when tea started to become an important commodity on global markets, they used it as a kind of currency to trade for necessities. Now, it's the key cash crop for the group.

"Although we make a fortune from these natural gifts, we should still maintain our reverence for them," says Su, who in the past three decades has spent time compiling the history of the Blang, spreading the ethnic group's traditional culture and helping improve the educational background of the younger generations.

"To better protect the ancient tea trees and put our ancestors' words into practice, education is important," says Su, who has set up a school in Mangjing village.

Nan Kang, leader of Mangjing village, recalls that life used to be quite simple in the past, with people rarely leaving their home.

In recent years, new lifestyles and cultural patterns have been introduced and gradually begun to transform Blang society.

However, people have attempted to maintain their connection with nature, for example, refusing to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides and retaining their traditional way of tea tree cultivation.

The ancient tea tree plantations on Jingmai Mountain cover about 16,000 hectares. The tea trees are all over 100 years old, with some aged more than 1,000.

"We advocate for all living creatures in the area to be protected. We believe each has its own spirit, so we should treat them like humans," says Nan, 61, at his tea house in Mangjing village.

While he is speaking, a bee flies into his house and cannot escape, trapped by a glass door. Nan walks slowly toward it, covers it with a cup and takes it outside to free it. "We see all the insects, birds and other animals as our tea gardens' guards. We also protect them and live with them in harmony," says Nan.

Each tea tree in Nan's garden, which is about the size of seven soccer fields, is like his baby. He knows them well and prefers to harvest the oldest ones himself, in case others who are not familiar with them break the branches during picking.

Nan says the average income for a person working only in the picking season (two months in spring and two in autumn) can reach 40,000 yuan ($5,800), sufficient for a good life there.

"We are not short of land, money or houses. We are in need of educated young people who can help us to better protect our environment and keep our promises to our ancestors," says Nan.

Xian Jin is one such young person, who returned to her village in Jingmai Mountain after studying tea culture and art in cities like Shenzhen in Guangdong province and Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.

The 22-year-old is from the Dai ethnic group, one of the major communities in the area which, like the Blang, has practiced the cultivation of tea trees for generations. She is the first in her village to use short-video platforms to introduce ancient plantations and tea culture to an audience outside the mountain.

From last autumn after the tea harvest, she began livestreaming to show the beauty of the tea plantations, the landscape of the ancient villages that surround them and the area's tea culture.

She usually works from afternoon to late night, interacting with her viewers on livestreaming platform Douyin to demonstrate how tea is picked, as well as introduce different tea trees and sometimes dance and sing local songs for her fans.

"We have been taught since childhood that these tea trees are treasures passed down by our forefathers. To protect them is natural for us," says Xian.

She recalls that when she was 3, her mother would carry her in a basket to the tea plantation, where she would help with picking tea.

Now Xian has more than 10,000 fans. She livestreams in the forests, sometimes confronting animals, including squirrels, snakes and eagles, all with calmness and familiarity.

Xian says many of her peers are thinking about returning home to follow in her footsteps and start livestreaming.

Besides local villagers' voluntary protection efforts, the government has also joined in. Last year, Pu'er city issued 20 regulations aimed at conservation of ancient tea tree plantations. At the beginning of March, Yunnan province rolled out rules banning six kinds of practices that have the potential to damage tea tree forests and the environment.

"We have a long road ahead, and it will take time to protect the ancient tea tree plantations," says Zhang Pisheng, a local official.