Tibetans began drinking tea during the Chinese Tang Dynasty (7th century). The tea was imported from southern Yunnan or Sichuan. The durable Tibetan horses was in need as war horses for the Chinese. That resulted in a two-way trade route known as the Cha Ma Gu Dao (the tea-horse trail - from Yunnan to Lhasa to Butan, Nepal and India, ca 4000 kilometers. A history of ca. 1300 years. Shaxi was one of the old villege towns on the trail. Picture shows a river of Shaxi .