China Travel Guide
Attraction · Hangzhou Longjing Tea Village

Longjing Tea Village

Terraced Dragon Well tea fields; tastings at family farms.

Visitor info

Opening hours
08:00-17:00
Ticket
free walk; tastings 30-100 CNY
Suggested visit
2-3 hours

Price is indicative — final quote on inquiry.

Why it's worth it

The village that gives China's most famous green tea its name — terraced rows of Longjing bushes climbing the valley, farmers pan-firing leaves in woks you can smell from the lane, and tea houses that pour for as long as you'll sit.

Don't miss

  • A pan-frying demonstration at a farmhouse — 200°C wok, bare hands, four hours per kilo
  • The eight Imperial Tea Trees Qianlong supposedly honoured, roped off up the hill
  • Sitting with a glass of pre-Qingming first-flush tea while it stands and re-steeps three times

Getting there

Bus 27 or 87 from Longxiangqiao area, or a 20-minute taxi from the West Lake west shore.

Tips

  • Pre-Qingming (before early April) leaf is the vintage; later tea is cheaper and still good
  • Farmhouse tea tastings are hospitable but end in a sales pitch — decide your budget before the second cup
  • Walk up past the tea museum into the terraces; the village itself is shops, the fields are the sight

Photos

Longjing Tea Village — photo 2Longjing Tea Village — photo 3Longjing Tea Village — photo 4

More in Hangzhou

  • Xixi National Wetland

    Boat maze of reeds and water villages west of the city.

  • West Lake

    UNESCO lake of pagodas, causeways and arched bridges; boat or bike the shoreline.

  • Lingyin Temple

    Buddhist temple founded 326 AD amid grottoes of Song-era rock carvings.

  • West Lake Loop

    A World Heritage Site (inscribed in 2011): an urban lake with misty hills on three sides and the city on the fourth, dredged in succession by two of its governors, Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo; Su Shi's verse "wishing to compare West Lake to the beauty Xi Shi" made it a byword for Eastern aesthetics

  • Su Causeway & Bai Causeway

    Su Causeway, 2.8 km long, was built from dredged silt when Su Shi dredged West Lake; six bridges span the lake, with peach trees and willows lining both banks—"Misty Willows over Six Bridges" is the top spring scene

  • Leifeng Pagoda

    The 2002 rebuilt pagoda on the ruins of the old tower that collapsed in 1924 (traditionally the "Huangfei Pagoda" built by a king of Wuyue): a steel structure shelters the original pagoda site, an elevator inside runs straight to the top floor for panoramic West Lake views, and the gilt silver Ashoka stupa unearthed from the underground palace is a treasure of Buddhist art