Bada Mountain

Bada Mountain is in XiDing Village in the western part of Menghai County, Xishuangbanna, at 1,580–2,000 m elevation. Bada became internationally significant in 1962 with the discovery of a wild tea tree estimated at over 1,700 years old and 34 m tall — locally called the "King of Tea Trees" — regarded as crucial evidence for the origins of Camellia sinensis as a cultivated species. Ancient tea gardens at Old ZhangLang Village (1,400+ years of cultivation) cover roughly 1.3 km², planted by ancestors of the BuLang ethnic group; the trees coexist with wild forest and remain unpruned.