Longjing Tea Plantations & National Tea Museum, Hangzhou

Longjing Village gets the name and the tour buses, but the more rewarding half of this tea country lies one valley over in Meijiawu: a broader, greener valley with more terraces to wander and far fewer people doing the wandering. Together the two villages, and the China National Tea Museum between them, cover the hills that have grown Longjing (Dragon Well), China's most celebrated green tea, for more than a thousand years, and once supplied the imperial court.

What's actually here

Terraced tea rows climb the hillsides between Longjing Village and Meijiawu, laced with footpaths and small tea houses. The China National Tea Museum sits between the two, its free galleries covering tea's history, varieties, and ceremony across landscaped grounds; look for the original Dragon Well spring near Longjing Village and the "Eighteen Imperial Tea Bushes," said to have been honoured by Emperor Qianlong. A popular loop links the museum, the tea terraces, and the Longjing Ancient Trail into a walk of roughly 5 km.

Free to walk, paid to drink

Walking the hills and villages, and entering the China National Tea Museum, costs nothing; the museum keeps slightly longer hours in the warmer months (roughly 9am to 5pm from May to October, 8:30am to 4:30pm the rest of the year) and closes on Mondays. Tea tasting, guided picking, and buying leaves are the paid part, and prices are negotiable, not fixed, so agree the grade and the price per jin (500g) before anything is weighed.

Getting there

Bus Y3 and regular routes 27 and 87 run to Longjing Village and the museum, with the Y3 stop at Shuangfeng particularly convenient for the museum; a taxi from West Lake takes about 15 minutes. Many visitors walk in from the lake's southwest shore instead and treat the tea hills as a half-day hike rather than a bus trip.

When to go

Spring is the season that matters here: the prized pre-Qingming (mingqian) harvest runs from late March to early April, when the hills are busiest with pickers and the freshest leaves cost the most. Autumn trades the crowds for quiet, golden walks with little tea activity to watch.

Buying tea without getting fleeced

Genuine West Lake Longjing is a limited, expensive crop, so cheap tea sold roadside as "authentic Longjing" is almost always ordinary tea from elsewhere, and leaves picked after the Qingming festival sometimes get rebranded and sold as the pricier pre-Qingming grade. Buy from village co-ops, the museum shop, or an established tea house rather than roadside touts, taste before you commit, and for packages of 250g or more, check for an official certificate with a scratch-off authentication code you can verify online.