Abstract: Located in southwest China, the southwest tea area is the oldest tea area in China and has Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing as the main tea producing provinces. To understand soil heavy metal content of this area, the authors reviewed and summarized related literatures, and proposed the research direction of heavy metals of soil-tea system. The results showed that, in general, the heavy metals’contents in southwest tea area were acceptable, but the content of cadmium and mercury exceeded the limit standard (GB 15618- 2008) in some tea planting areas. The heavy metal forms were mainly water-soluble state, exchangeable state, organic bound state, iron-manganese oxidation state, carbonate state and residual state, the forms of watersoluble state and exchangeable state had higher bio-availability and were significantly affected by soil pH value. The migration of heavy metals in tea-soil system was influenced by tea garden management mode, soil physical and chemical properties, year of plantation and tea plant. Therefore, it is important to enhance the study on the transport and transformation of heavy metal in soil-tea system and construct heavy metal pollution forecast system.