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From the 17th to the early 20th century, the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road”, stretching over 10,000 kilometers from China’s Wuyi Mountain in Fujian and Anhua in Hunan, through Hankou and Kyakhta all the way to St. Petersburg, stood as a remarkable achievement in the history of Eurasian continental trade over several centuries (Cao, 2019). Along this extensive tea trade route, tea was not only a commodity being transported but also served as a bond integrating the cultures of Han Chinese, Mongolians (parts of the Qing Empire), and other ethnic groups within China, alongside Russian merchants and their traditions (Huang & Sun, 2024). As the direct carrier of this process, tea packaging became the material testament to the mutual learning and symbiosis of cultures from different regions and ethnicities, skillfully blending the aesthetic interests of diverse areas and thus achieving the cross-cultural translation of visual symbols (Wang, 2018). As Marx mentioned regarding the economic impact of the Sino-Russian tea trade, the standardized packaging of Yangloudong brick tea served as a guarantor of commercial credit. This paper, from the perspective of design studies, analyzes the forms, patterns, and materials of the packaging to explore the underlying visual rhetoric and cultural metaphors, aiming to reveal the deep interaction mechanisms between diverse ethnic groups in artistic and technical dimensions, and to provide historical references and contemporary insights for cultural integration in the current context of globalization.

1 The Historical Context of the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” and the Functional Transformation of Tea Packaging

1.1 The Dual Economic and Cultural Attributes of the Tea Road

Given tea’s unique physiological benefits in the dietary structure of nomadic peoples, it became an essential commodity in nomadic economic systems like those of the Mongols and Kazakhs, who relied heavily on meat and required tea to aid digestion and supplement vitamins. This rigid demand elevated tea from ordinary goods to a medium of power. For instance, brick tea in the tribute lists of Mongolian princes during the Kangxi reign surpassed silk as a hard currency. This phenomenon of “tea monetization” strongly evidenced its core position in nomadic societies (Huang & Ping, 2020).

Against this background, tea merchants along the road pushed packaging design towards standardization and functional evolution to meet the needs of long-distance transport and the circulation demands of “tea as currency”. For example, the Shanxi merchant firm “Sanhe Gong” modified the Anhua hundred-liang tea into thousand-liang tea, while the Hubei Yangloudong tea bricks were impressed with the “Chuan” character logo and packaged in uniformly specified kraft paper. This design not only facilitated bundling and measurement by camel caravans but also built commercial credit through a symbolic system (Lü & Hu, 2014). Furthermore, in the mid-19th century, Russian merchants, observing the Mongolian herders’ habit of using brick tea as a store of value, required Chinese tea factories to line the packaging with tin foil, extending the shelf life to over ten years. This endowed the packaging with financial attributes, evolving it from a simple protective device into a financial tool, its functional boundaries constantly expanding with economic needs.

During this process, Shanxi merchants, Huizhou merchants, and Russian merchants engaged in intense competition over the discourse power of packaging design. The three-layer nested tea chest introduced by the Shanxi firm “Dashengkui” serves as a prime example. Its outer layer of birch bark for waterproofing, a middle layer of an elm wood frame, and an inner lining of Mongolian lamb skin not only solved the physical challenges of transport on the grasslands but also forged an emotional connection through nomadic cultural symbols. In contrast, Russian merchants adopted a Westernization strategy to compete for the high-end market, introducing gilt lacquered boxes with painted Chinese landscapes on the surface, catering to the Russian aristocracy’s imagination of “Oriental exoticism” and highlighting the aesthetic contest in trade.

Meanwhile, many Shanxi merchant firms promoted the incorporation of multi-cultural symbols into tea packaging through cross-cultural translation. The combination of Tibetan Buddhist “Eight Auspicious Symbols” patterns with Han Chinese “Fu Lu Shou” themes during the Qianlong era vividly exemplifies this cultural integration. This transplantation was not a simple replication but a localized symbolic reconstruction. Specifically, Han artisans transformed the forms of Tibetan Buddhist ritual implements and integrated Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain painting techniques with Mongolian metal engraving craftsmanship, achieving a reconciliation between “sacrality” and “locality”, ultimately forming a uniquely characteristic artistic style. This design made the packaging a communication medium crossing religious boundaries, maintaining religious authority while achieving cultural adaptation (Shangguan, 2025).

1.2 The Functional Transformation of Packaging Design

The functional transformation of tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road”, changing in response to the route’s variations, can be viewed as the materialized manifestation of civilizational collisions and technical mutual learning across Eurasia, witnessing the packaging’s functional leap from mere physical protection to cultural encoding. Specifically, on the section from Wuyi Mountain to Zhangjiakou, Chinese merchants established a sophisticated triple-seal protective system: bamboo strips as the mechanical framework, steamed bamboo leaves as the moisture barrier, and tung oil solidified bamboo shoots to resist water erosion, setting a rigorous physical protection standard. This bamboo technology, originating in the south, merged with nomadic wisdom upon entering Mongolia, evolving into the yak-hide “leather tea bag”, facilitating the adaptive transformation of tea packaging from settled to nomadic civilizations.

However, as the trade network diversified, packaging design fissured into a dual-faced response to regional markets. On the Mongolian grasslands, the “Er-si” (24-liang) brick tea adopted a modular specification (Lai, 2022), transforming into a divisible physical currency. The tear resistance of the outer kraft paper ensured its integrity as a credit token during frequent circulation. In stark contrast, the Russian aristocratic market prompted a “de-functionalization” turn. White tip tea was placed in liuli jars imitating French perfume bottles, where the ornamentation of the Art Nouveau style rendered practicality subordinate to symbolism, achieving premium pricing by creating the illusion of scarcity, exposing the underlying logic of cultural capital operation in cross-cultural trade.

Amid the contest between cultural needs and commercial interests, packaging technology gave birth to breakthrough fusion paradigms. A representative example is the “seven-layer lacquer box” created by Central Plains lacquerware artisans, integrating Russian lacquer painting styles. From the inner tin can to the outer leather carrying case, each layer’s structure precisely responded to the transport environment while forming a stratified profile of technical traditions. Such a cross-border design not only broke through craft boundaries but also constructed a material carrier for cross-civilizational dialogue through the creative recombination of techniques, materials, and symbols, elevating the packaging system of the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” into a composite system attesting to the integration of Eurasian civilizations (Liu, 2015).

2 Manifestations of Ethnic Cultural Integration in Tea Vessel Packaging Design

2.1 Multi-faceted Integration in Form Design

The form design of tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” constitutes not only a material vehicle of ethnic cultural integration but also a product of the resonance between cross-regional technical rationality and spiritual beliefs. This is primarily manifested in the functional adaptation and cultural translation experienced by the Central Plains traditional utensil system within cross-cultural contexts.

Taking the “gui-style tea caddy” of the Shanxi merchant firm “Changyuchuan” as an example, its main body inherited the ritual characteristics of the Shang-Zhou bronze gui — “flared mouth, bulging belly, ring foot” — but its scale was reduced to one-third of the prototype. This reduction in weight and size adapted it for camel transport, saving material and labor by simplifying the complex taotie motif into geometric lines. This modification retained the solemnity of the ritual vessel while accommodating the Mongolian herders’ preference for simple forms. Similarly, the “double-handled dragon-motif tea urn” custom-ordered by Russian merchants in the late 18th century featured a body continuing the spherical form of Han dynasty pottery urns, but the two handles were replaced with the flame shapes found in Russian religious icons, a creation demonstrating the profound integration of cross-cultural design in form and decoration.

Furthermore, influenced by nomadic cultures, the design thinking behind tea packaging on this road transcended the limitations of traditional static display, giving rise to ergonomic innovations centered on spatial efficiency. A typical instance is the saddle-shaped tea chest. Its design adopted a symmetrical trapezoidal structure, with the wide side fitting the curve of the horse’s back to reduce wind resistance and the narrow side equipped with leather straps. Internally, a retractable sandalwood frame and a camel-hair cushioning system absorbed bumps, while its internal space could expand or contract freely according to cargo volume, thus establishing “mobility” as a key design principle. On the other hand, the surface of the chest was interwoven with swastika (wanzi) and endless knot (panchang) patterns, their gold leaf outlines refracting the aura of multiple civilizations. This marked that design along the route had surpassed the simple collage of artifacts, sublimating into a systematic innovation paradigm, forging technical consensus and aesthetic empathy. A similar situation is the “nested tea canister” developed by Russian merchants, which drew on the principle of the Mongolian arrow quiver, using cylindrical units of decreasing diameter to adjust capacity, thus demonstrating the reverse penetration of nomadic wisdom into industrial design, embodying the beauty of creative integration and transformation driven by pragmatism in cross-cultural exchange.

2.2 Cross-Cultural Expression of Patterns and Symbols

From a semiotic perspective, the tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” not only documented the descent of sacred symbols into secular contexts but also carried the contemporary reconstruction of historical memory. This process involved two aspects: first, the transformation from de-contextualization to re-encoding; second, the permeation of Daoist culture prompted the material transformation of the aesthetics of “vital force”. An example of the former is a tea caddy custom-ordered by the Dechang Tea Firm in the early Republic of China period, which lightly depicted the Jiangnan waterscape scene of “boating under the moonlight”. This was a secularized expression using natural imagery, integrating the Chinese philosophical concept of “Heaven and Humanity in One” into everyday objects. The latter is exemplified by the “flowing cloud pattern” on Anhua dark tea packaging, whose design utilized the underglaze red technique to create a blurred, shaded texture on the pottery surface, metaphorically representing the Daoist philosophy of “Tao follows Nature”, while also enhancing transport safety by increasing surface roughness, achieving a deep integration of philosophical concept and practical function. For instance, the intertwined lotus pattern on the gold-outlined official gift black tea caddy from Xinglongmao Tea Firm, the motif’s curving, flowing plant forms implicitly aligning with the Daoist cosmology “The Tao produced Oneness (the original vital energy); Oneness produced Duality (the Yin and Yang); Duality produced Trinity (the harmonious union of Yin and Yang); and Trinity produced all things”. strengthened the nomadic peoples’ identification with agrarian culture. It can be argued that this flow of cross-cultural visual symbols even influenced exotic aesthetics and the creation of an exotic atmosphere (Li, 2025).

2.3 Regional Interaction in Materials and Techniques

The material and technical innovations in tea vessel packaging design vividly illustrate the dynamic process of ethnic cultural integration along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road”. Ecological materials from different regions underwent semantic changes within cross-cultural contexts, while traditional craft techniques achieved breakthrough reconstructions through collision. This bidirectional interplay preserved the genetic code of original cultures while giving rise to new forms transcending regional limitations.

Taking Fujian tea merchants’ “bamboo filament-wrapped porcelain” as an example, artisans split bamboo strips to 0.2 mm to wrap porcelain jars in a hexagonal grid. This not only utilized the bamboo fibers’ physical properties of moisture absorption and breathability but also endowed the packaging with the communicative meaning of the “bamboo” symbolizing gentlemanly virtues. Furthermore, tea merchants in the Hubei area utilized bamboo resources to make bamboo chests and baskets, deconstructing the bamboo into architectural units. The bottom was laid with crossed bamboo strips forming an elastic support, while the side panels were diagonally woven to create airflow channels. This structure miniaturized the architectural pursuit of fluidity within the tea chest design.

At the level of cross-cultural dialogue in craft techniques, the exquisite “Chinese-style floral and bird wooden tea chests” custom-ordered by Russian merchants and exported from Hankou pushed this integration to its extreme. This design not only enabled the tea chest to withstand temperatures as low as -40°C but also cleverly utilized the difference in expansion coefficients between the lacquer layers and the metal to create a visual effect similar to the color gradation in Thangka paintings. This “beauty of imperfection” arising from technical physical characteristics was sublimated into a decorative language, even influencing the “fluid metal” style of the European Art Nouveau movement. Thus, the localized transformation of materials and techniques in tea vessel packaging represents both a wise adaptation of physical properties and a creative recombination of cultural genes, profoundly embodying the logic of “vessels conveying the Way” in mutual learning among civilizations at the scale of packaging (Zhang, 2020; Wang, 2022).

3 Drivers and Mechanisms of Ethnic Cultural Integration Evident in Tea Vessel Packaging

3.1 The Mechanism of Symbolic Translation Driven by Economic Trade

Economic trade demand was the core driving force behind the evolution of tea vessel packaging design along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road”, its essence being a practice of visual translation across cultural boundaries. In this process, packaging transcended its attribute as a mere physical container, transforming into a pivotal symbolic medium for resolving cultural barriers and establishing commercial credit. For example, Qing Dynasty Shanxi merchants skillfully used topological reconstruction techniques, integrating the shipping symbols on tea packaging with Mongolian and Russian scripts or images, constructing a visual order with both tripartite recognition and cultural commensurability, thus effectively facilitating cross-cultural identification.

However, this translation mechanism for symbolic identification also exhibited a distinct characteristic of “layered adaptation” along the route, attributable to different trading systems. Considering the phenomenon of barter exchange on the Mongolian grasslands, the weight and packaging patterns of brick tea destined for this region were precisely adjusted. On the one hand, the galloping horse pattern on the packaging kraft paper extended horizontally as a continuous silhouette, a visual language that perfectly matched the nomadic peoples’ perceptual experience of “Heaven and Earth coexisting”. On the other hand, similar symbolic translation in the Russian market displayed an inclination towards Orientalist aesthetics. For instance, the gilt tea boxes custom-ordered in St. Petersburg skillfully combined reduced double-headed eagle emblems with Rococo acanthus leaves, utilizing visual balance to mediate cultural heterogeneity, thus achieving the transformation from symbolic difference to market strategy.

Furthermore, the institutionalized production mode of tea packaging further confirmed this systematic nature of translation. The “Chuan” brand green brick tea from Yangloudong, Hubei, serves as a typical example. The three impressed “Chuan” characters on the brick’s surface created a “tactile symbol”, enabling even illiterate frontier herders to quickly identify authentic products through touch. This design not only became a universal “visual credit” and “quality certification” in cross-cultural trade but also profoundly revealed the dual role of tea packaging as a cross-cultural adaptation mechanism in pre-industrial global trade. That is to say, tea packaging functioned both as the material vehicle for the circulation of goods and as a cultural practice of decoding and re-encoding cultural connotations into visual symbols.

3.2 The Visual Politics Shaped by Power Struggles

Through the lens of visual politics, the tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” can be seen as a material projection of imperial power and territorial imagination.

In tension with this was the “implicit resistance” of private merchant groups. Taking the tea vessels of Dayuchuan during the Daoguang era as an example, Shanxi merchants, seeking to break through the official monopoly on trade with Mongolia, constructed the merchant group’s own cultural core beneath the compliant surface of the “dragon-motif tea chest”. This dual symbolic system of “official-style exterior — merchant-group core” was essentially a strategic game conducted through “compliance camouflage”. Similarly, the brick tea factories established by Tsarist Russia in Hankou in the early 20th century also used packaging design to implement strategies of market penetration and cultural branding. Besides the Russian script, logos like the “locomotive” of Shunfeng Tea Factory and the “double anchors” of Xintai Tea Factory were forcibly imprinted. This visual symbolism skillfully achieved the simultaneous expression of political discipline and regional beliefs.

3.3 The Aesthetic Community Constructed by Consumer Culture

From the perspective of consumer culture, the tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” evolved into a visual-political practice integrating consumption demands, technical traditions, and cultural imaginaries. This process not only promoted the circulation of goods across regions but also fostered the integration and symbiosis of diverse aesthetic tastes, primarily embodied in the dual integration of technical logic and symbolic systems. This characteristic was particularly evident in practice. On the Mongolian grasslands, the “monetization” attribute of tea gave rise to the dual demands of functionality and symbolism in packaging, prompting its design to shift towards the unification of practicality and recognizability. For example, the felt-lined cloth tea bags or saddlebags met the practical need for durability while adapting to the need for long-distance identification across vast territories with their highly recognizable appearance. This “practical aesthetics”, rooted in survival wisdom and transactional practice, was a direct manifestation of technical logic adapting to the local environment.

In the context of Russian aristocratic consumption of “Chinoiserie”, technical hybridity also manifested as the creative transformation at the symbolic level. Taking the blue-and-white porcelain-style tea caddies custom-ordered by the St. Petersburg court as an example, their design deconstructed Daoist cloud patterns into non-linear topological structures, allowing traditional intertwined lotus patterns and Rococo acanthus leaves to form continuous mappings on curved surfaces. This aesthetic practice, based on “misreading” and “reconstruction”, was essentially the hybrid regeneration of cross-civilizational aesthetic experiences stimulated by consumer culture, demonstrating the organic fusion of heterogeneous cultural symbols on commercial packaging.

In the realm of technical standards, the construction of the aesthetic community demonstrated a clear path towards institutionalization. The Hankou Tea Guild, established in 1868, through unifying weights and measures, advocating honest trade, and jointly resisting irregular practices, established a “standard consensus” within the industry regarding quality and transaction norms. This laid a solid commercial credit foundation for the standardization of tea packaging, transforming tea packaging into a vehicle with precise quantitative indicators and achieving the systematic integration of cross-cultural design needs. Thus, driven by consumer culture, technical standards became the conversion interface for cultural power, while the material vehicle evolved into the embodied expression of aesthetic consensus. What we observe is not merely the formal evolution of decorative patterns, but the topological isomorphism of cross-civilizational aesthetic experiences manifested at the material level.

4 Conclusion

Driven by economic imperatives, the tea packaging along the “Ten-Thousand-Mile Tea Road” constructed cross-linguistic visual identification through symbolic translation, resolving cultural barriers. From functional, symbolic, to material aspects, it reflects the integrative results of civilizational interaction, serving as a paradigm of visual practice in early globalization. This civilizational fusion is specifically manifested in three dimensions: functionally, the combination of nomadic mobility, wisdom and agrarian settlement techniques gave rise to composite designs adapted to complex environments; symbolically, religious totems, scripts, and power codes were creatively recombined, forming cross-regional visual consensus; materially, the fusion of ecological materials and traditional crafts combined practical value and cultural metaphor. However, this integration was not a simple superimposition of elements, but a structural interaction under the triple mechanisms of economic drive, power discipline, and consumer shaping. Reflecting on this historical experience, its implication for contemporary design lies in the fact that true cultural integration is not merely collaging elements, but achieving the organic integration of technique, art, and belief based on a profound understanding and respect for differences. This deep-seated logic of integration offers a valuable theoretical perspective and practical path for design innovation in today’s globalized context.

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