This current review of research tells a richly detailed story of the evolving intellectual structure of teacher emotion research during 35 years starting from 1985 until 2019, through identifying 812 articles and using a descriptive quantitative analysis approach. The developmental trend reveals a substantial change in the volume of publications recently, although the overall volume of research is still relatively low. Findings identify that, although quantitative methods were the most commonly used, qualitative and mixed methods of research have undergone a marked increase in the past ten years. However, as the majority of articles have been exploratory-oriented, intervention and experimental studies are largely lacking, resulting in the "so-what" story being missing. A functionalist perspective suggests that knowledge production in teacher emotion research is either at a late first stage or an emerging second stage. This effort lays a foundation on which to interpret the evolution of the teacher emotion literature.