November 22 – December 5, 2026 · Year of the Horse

The Tea
Horse Road

Ivy Hermit  ·  Eastern Leaves
November 2026

A road that moved tea
across Central Asia for
a thousand years.

Fourteen days. Four provinces. Chengdu to Yiwu — the route that carried pressed Pu'er into Tibet and Central Asia before there was a name for what it was doing.

We are going with Eastern Leaves, who have traveled this ground for years. What we find will return with us. Some of it will make it to members first.

We do not fly this journey. Every leg by train or car — the same ground the caravans moved through. There is no other way to understand what the road actually is.

On the high-speed rail legs, we run a cold brew competition. The rules are simple: bring a cold brew bottle, pick a tea you think can hold up to three or four hours of cold steeping, and fill it when you board. By the time you pull into the next city, the tea has had time to become something — and so have you.

There are no instructions on what to choose. Some people reach for an aged Pu'er because it opens slowly and rewards patience. Others go for a high-mountain oolong because they want something clear against the landscape scrolling past the window. When we arrive, we compare — what you chose, what it became after four hours in a cold brew bottle on a moving train, and why you thought that was the right call.

It is not really a competition. It is an excuse to pay attention. To the light changing outside. To the color of your tea two hours in. To what the person next to you chose, and what that tells you about how they think about tea. The train becomes the session.

Solomon, founder of Ivy Hermit, departs from New York. If you'd like to travel together from JFK or EWR, we can coordinate. Or join us in Chengdu on your own schedule — either way works.

Dates November 22 – December 5, 2026
Duration 14 days · 13 nights
Route Chengdu → Yunnan → Xishuangbanna → Yiwu
Departing New York (JFK / EWR) — travel together or meet in Chengdu
Hosts Ivy Hermit & Eastern Leaves

A road older than the trade it carried.

The Tea Horse Road — 茶馬古道, Chama Gudao — was not a road in any modern sense. It was a network of mountain paths connecting the tea mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan to the high plateaus of Tibet and Central Asia, active from at least the Tang Dynasty (7th century) through to the 20th. For over a thousand years, compressed Pu'er cakes traveled one way, warhorses the other.

The trade was not incidental. Chinese dynasties could not field cavalry without Tibetan horses. Tibetan communities could not survive high-altitude winters without the nutrients in aged tea. What moved along this road wasn't a luxury — it was infrastructure. The Tea Horse Road built monasteries, cities, and cultures on both ends. Pu'er tea was compressed into cakes specifically because of this journey — dense enough to survive months on a yak's back at 4,000 metres.

Most of the road has been absorbed by paved highways. What remains — the stone-paved sections in Yiwu and Shaxi, the ancient trading posts, the farmers still pressing cakes by hand — is what we are going to see.

木馬年 · 2026

This year is the Year of the Horse.
We thought about that when we planned the route.

Two Routes · One Road The ancient Tea Horse Road and our 2026 journey, overlaid
The Tea Horse Road, c. 618–1950 CE
Our 2026 journey (train & car, no flights)
Both routes pass here
Before We Depart · New York October – November 2026

In the weeks before we leave, we gather in New York. Two seminars — the history of the road, the teas we'll encounter, the people we'll meet.

Session 01

The Road

A thousand years of Pu'er caravans, mountain passes, and the trade that connected Southwest China to Tibet and Central Asia. Why this route existed, what it moved, and what remains of it. The historical context behind every stop we'll make.

New York · Date TBA
Session 02

The Teas

Aged sheng, Tibetan dark tea, rock oolong, ancient-tree Pu'er. What each one is, how it was made, and what to look for when you're tasting in the field. You don't need to have drunk these before — you need to understand what you're drinking before you arrive.

New York · Date TBA
Day by Day Nov 22 – Dec 5

Chengdu

Days 1–5  ·  Nov 22–26
Day 1 Nov 22

Arrival

Transfers and check-in. Sichuan cuisine for lunch. A welcome tea session in a traditional teahouse before the city has a chance to find you.

Day 2 Nov 23

People's Park

Bamboo-shaded teahouses in the morning. No agenda — the kind of sitting that most cities have forgotten how to allow. The Panda Base in the afternoon.

Day 3 Nov 24

Ya'an · Mengding Mountain

Drive from Chengdu into the foothills. Mengding Mountain: the world's first deliberately cultivated tea garden, still there, still producing. Ancient temples. Centuries-old mother trees that have been doing this since before the dynasty you're thinking of.

Day 4 Nov 25

Yingjing

The Tea Horse Road Museum. Then a private tasting with a long-time collector — seventy years of archived, sealed teas, opened carefully. Tibetan dark tea in the afternoon. A tour of a black pottery workshop before dinner.

Day 5 Nov 26

Return to Chengdu

The descent from foothills to plains. A slower pace. Afternoon at Wuhou Temple — a Three Kingdoms shrine that rewards the unhurried — or Mount Emei, a sacred Buddhist peak. You choose.

Kunming & Dali

Days 6–8  ·  Nov 27–29
Day 6 Nov 27

Kunming

High-speed train from Chengdu. Afternoon in the Green Lake neighborhood — the kind of tea culture that doesn't perform itself. An easy first evening in Yunnan.

Day 7 Nov 28

Kunming · Dali

Morning at an incense school: agarwood collection, theory, and blending. A discipline that shares more with tea than it might seem. Then west — private car to Dali's old town. Erhai Lake by evening.

Day 8 Nov 29

Dali · Shaxi

Dali's courtyards and lanes in the morning. Then south to Shaxi — a trading post on the original Tea Horse Road, still intact. The 700-year-old Ancient Theatre. Xingjiao Temple. Yujin Bridge. Tea in Bai architecture that hasn't decided it needs to update.

Xishuangbanna

Days 9–14  ·  Nov 30 – Dec 5
Day 9 Nov 30

Shaxi → Kunming → Pu'er → Xishuangbanna

A long day by rail — intentionally so. We don't fly this leg. The train south from Kunming runs through Pu'er on the Yunnan-Laos Railway, the same corridor the ancient caravans used to bring tea north. Every kilometer of it matters. Welcome lunch on arrival, with ancient-tree Pu'er alongside Eastern Leaves' own harvest — the first real comparison of the journey.

Day 10 Dec 1

Nannuo Mountain

A walk to the 800-year-old tree considered king of the mountain. Hani culture lunch with locally grown ingredients. Gongfucha technique in the afternoon — unhurried, in the right setting for once.

Day 11 Dec 2

Menghai

A traditional tea workshop, the kind that has been running the same way for longer than the brand. Stone-mill cake pressing by hand. A dedicated Pu'er tasting in the afternoon — production understood from the inside.

Day 12 Dec 3

Yiwu Mountain

Travel to Yiwu Old Street — historically regarded as the starting point of the Tea Horse Road. Historically significant homes, a trading square, a local museum. Then the original stone road through the forest, on foot.

Day 13 Dec 4

Luoshuidong · Mahei

A morning tea session with the Yiwu peaks behind it. Two villages: Luoshuidong, with ancient trees and original stone road, then Mahei — a Han-culture village that has been here longer than the road has a name.

Day 14 Dec 5

Farewell · Xishuangbanna

A final session with the best teas of the journey. Guanguan prepared on fire. Everything that gets said, gets said here. Then transfers to airport or train per individual schedule.

What's Included
Not Included
Dining
Eastern Leaves tea sourcing
Co-hosted with Eastern Leaves

This road is theirs.
We are accompanying.

Eastern Leaves has traveled this ground for years. Their knowledge of the route, the farmers, and the teas is not something we would replicate alone — nor would we try. This trip is theirs to lead and ours to bring our people into.

If you know either of us, you know what that means for what gets opened in the room.

Read about the journey from Eastern Leaves →
Space is limited

To join, write to us.

We are not running a waitlist or a countdown. If this is for you, reach out and we will tell you what we know — dates, cost, what to expect. No pressure applied here.

solomon@ivyhermit.com