Pu'er City (普洱市) in Yunnan has published a draft that would amend its two local laws on old tea trees: the Jingmai Mountain Ancient Tea Forest Cultural Landscape Protection Regulations (普洱市景迈山古茶林文化景观保护条例) and the Pu'er City Ancient Tea Tree Resources Protection Regulations (普洱市古茶树资源保护条例). The notice from the office of the Pu'er Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee is dated October 13, 2026 and appeared in the Pu'er Daily (《普洱日报》) on October 15. The public can send comments until October 24, 2026.
What the draft changes
The city government approved the draft at its 136th executive meeting and has sent it to the city's People's Congress Standing Committee for review. Most of the changes bring the 2018 Pu'er regulation in line with the Yunnan Provincial Ancient Tea Tree Protection Regulations (云南省古茶树保护条例), which took effect on March 1, 2023.
| Topic | Current Pu'er regulation (in force since July 1, 2018) | Draft amendment |
|---|---|---|
| What counts as an "ancient tea tree" | Wild-type and transitional-type tea trees, plus cultivated tea trees aged 100 years or more | Wild and cultivated tea trees aged 100 years or more (same as the provincial rule) |
| Purpose wording | "Development and utilization" (开发利用) | "Research and utilization" (研究利用) |
| Summer picking | Transitional and cultivated ancient trees rest in summer: no fresh-leaf picking from June to August, with a fine of 200 to 1,000 yuan for breaking this rule | The rewritten clause only says owners must manage, care for and pick the trees according to technical guidelines. The June–August rule is not in the new wording. |
| Banned acts in protected areas | A city list of seven banned acts | Replaced with the provincial list, plus a new line: foreigners doing field surveys of ancient tea trees must complete the required procedures |
| Penalties | Fines set out in the city regulation | County forestry and agriculture departments apply the penalties in the provincial regulation |
A few other points in the draft:
- The agriculture department will write care guidelines for cultivated ancient trees. It will also check that owners use bio-organic fertilizer and green (integrated) pest and weed control.
- Department names are updated after government restructuring. One example is the tea and coffee industry department (茶咖产业主管部门).
- "Special plans" become "implementation plans", following a Yunnan directive that departments must not make special plans mandatory.
- The Jingmai Mountain regulation gets only one change. Its first article now cites China's new Ecological Environment Code (生态环境法典) instead of the Environmental Protection Law. The code was adopted on March 12, 2026, took effect on August 15, 2026 and replaced that law.
The draft does not yet give a date when the changes would take effect.
Why Jingmai and Pu'er matter
The old tea forests of Jingmai Mountain (景迈山) in Lancang (澜沧) County, Pu'er, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. Yunnan as a whole has about 670,000 mu of ancient tea gardens and more than 20 million ancient tea trees, according to the provincial people's congress.
What this means for pu'er drinkers
- A clearer legal meaning of "ancient tree". If the draft passes, Pu'er City will use the same 100-year line as the rest of Yunnan for both wild and cultivated trees. "Ancient tree" (古树) is a common selling point on pu'er wrappers, so one shared definition is useful. It is still a legal protection category, though, not a quality grade printed on the cake.
- Summer picking. Under the current city rule, transitional and cultivated ancient trees in Pu'er must not be picked from June to August. The draft's new wording leaves this out and refers to technical guidelines instead. It is not yet clear whether those guidelines will keep a summer rest period.
- Visitors and researchers. Foreign visitors who plan field surveys of ancient tea trees in Pu'er should expect paperwork, as the provincial regulation already requires.
Keep it in perspective
This is a draft. The Standing Committee can still change it, and it covers Pu'er City only. Famous areas in Xishuangbanna (西双版纳) and Lincang (临沧) are covered by the provincial regulation, not by this city law. A tree-age definition in law also does not prove the age of the leaf in a particular cake. When you buy, the producer's track record and how the tea tastes in the cup still matter most.
If you want to compare how different raw pu'er teas show their origin in the cup, browse our raw pu'er collection.
Source: Office of the Pu'er Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, public consultation notice and draft amendment (Pu'er Daily via puerw.cn, October 15, 2026); Pu'er City Ancient Tea Tree Resources Protection Regulations (2018 text); Yunnan Provincial Ancient Tea Tree Protection Regulations (Yunnan People's Congress); report on the provincial regulation taking effect; Xinhua on the Ecological Environment Code; UNESCO World Heritage listing for Jingmai Mountain. Summary and plain-language interpretation by Chen Sheng Tea. Featured image: "Old Tea Forest of the Jingmai Mountain" by 919sth., CC BY-SA 4.0.
