Hangzhou West Lake & Longjing Tea Guide - Shanghai Travel

Hangzhou sits at the southern terminus of the Grand Canal, 180 kilometers southwest of Shanghai, where the Qiantang River meets Hangzhou Bay. The city served as the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty from 1127 to 1279, when it was called Lin'an and housed a population estimated at over one million, making it the largest city in the world at that time. West Lake, the body of water that defines Hangzhou's identity, is an artificial freshwater lake covering 6.39 square kilometers, formed when the governor Bai Juyi constructed embankments in 822 during the Tang Dynasty and later expanded by the poet-governor Su Dongpo in 1089 during the Northern Song Dynasty. The lake sits at an elevation of 5 meters above sea level with an average depth of 2.27 meters and a maximum depth of 5 meters, fed by natural springs rather than rivers, which gives it exceptional clarity.

The West Lake Cultural Landscape received UNESCO World Heritage designation in 2011 under the category of cultural landscape, recognized for influencing garden design across East Asia for a thousand years and for its association with literary and artistic traditions. The lake's perimeter measures 15 kilometers and contains three artificial islands: the largest, Solitary Hill, covers 200,000 square meters and connects to the northern shore by the Bai Causeway, a 1-kilometer embankment constructed in the Tang Dynasty. The Su Causeway, a 2.8-kilometer embankment running north to south across the western side of the lake, was built in 1089 using mud dredged from the lakebed during Su Dongpo's tenure as governor. Six arched stone bridges cross the Su Causeway at intervals, and both causeways are lined with willow trees and peach trees planted in alternating patterns established during the Qing Dynasty. The lake management authority removes accumulated sediment every five years to maintain the historical depth, most recently completing a dredging cycle in 2020 that removed 1.2 million cubic meters of silt.

Ten designated scenic viewpoints around West Lake derive from descriptions in Song Dynasty poetry and were formalized during the Qing Dynasty under the Kangxi Emperor's 1699 tour of the south. These views—including "Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake," "Orioles Singing in the Willows," and "Lotus in the Breeze at Crooked Courtyard"—are marked by stone monuments bearing calligraphy by Kangxi himself. The viewing point called "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon" refers to three small stone pagodas built in 1621 during the Ming Dynasty, standing in the lake's southern section 62 meters apart in a triangular formation. Each pagoda rises 2 meters above the water surface with five hollow spheres carved into the sides below the waterline; during the Mid-Autumn Festival, candles placed inside the spheres create light reflections on the water that historically multiplied the appearance of the moon. The lake's management places these candles on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month each year, continuing a practice documented since 1699.

Lingyin Temple stands 2 kilometers west of West Lake at the base of Lingyin Mountain, founded in 326 by the Indian monk Huili during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The temple complex covers 87,000 square meters and has been destroyed and rebuilt sixteen times, with the current structures dating from reconstructions between 1956 and 1975 following damage during the Cultural Revolution and earlier during the Taiping Rebellion. The main hall, Great Hall of the Great Sage, houses a statue of Sakyamuni carved from 24 pieces of camphor wood in 1956, standing 19.6 meters tall and weighing approximately 10 tons, making it one of the largest seated wooden Buddha figures in current existence. The temple's name means Temple of the Soul's Retreat. Feilai Feng, a limestone outcrop immediately across from the temple entrance, contains 338 Buddhist relief carvings created between the 10th and 14th centuries, the oldest dating to 951 during the Five Dynasties period. The most photographed carving, a laughing Budai figure carved in 1000 during the Northern Song Dynasty, measures 1.2 meters tall and shows the corpulent monk reclining with exposed belly.

Longjing Village sits 5 kilometers southwest of West Lake in a valley between North Peak and Lion Peak, at elevations ranging from 150 to 360 meters above sea level. The village has cultivated tea since the Tang Dynasty, with written records of Longjing tea production appearing in Lu Yu's "Classic of Tea" completed in 760. The tea takes its name from the Dragon Well, a spring in the village discovered during the Northern Song Dynasty that produces water with higher density than typical groundwater due to dissolved minerals; when lighter rainwater meets this heavier spring water, the difference in density creates visible swirling patterns on the surface that historically resembled the movement of a dragon. The spring currently flows at a measured rate of 2.2 liters per minute. Longjing tea received imperial recognition in 1751 when the Qianlong Emperor visited the village during his southern tour and designated eighteen tea bushes outside the Hu Gong Temple as imperial tribute plants. These original bushes still exist behind a protective wall and are not harvested; their descendants propagated through grafting supply the Xi Hu Longjing protected designation of origin.

Authentic Xi Hu Longjing tea comes exclusively from 168 square kilometers of designated tea gardens surrounding West Lake, subdivided into five production zones with Shifeng Village and Longjing Village considered the highest grade. The Zhejiang provincial government maintains a registry of 2,847 individual tea producers authorized to use the Xi Hu Longjing designation as of 2023. The tea bushes are Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, specifically the Longjing #43 cultivar developed in 1960 by the China Tea Research Institute in Hangzhou, which now accounts for 70 percent of plantings, alongside older Qunti Zhong mixed-population varietals. Harvest begins in late March when new shoots reach specific developmental stages defined by the number of unfurled leaves; the highest grade, Lian Xin, consists of two leaves and a bud each under 1.5 centimeters. The 2024 auction price for pre-Qingming Shifeng Longjing reached 120,000 yuan per kilogram, though typical pre-Qingming prices range from 3,000 to 8,000 yuan per kilogram.

Processing Longjing tea requires hand-firing in a large wok heated to temperatures between 80 and 100 degrees Celsius depending on the stage. Fresh leaves are first withered for 4 to 6 hours to reduce moisture content from 75 percent to approximately 68 percent, then placed in the wok for initial firing lasting 12 to 15 minutes while the processor uses ten specific hand techniques with names like "shaking," "tossing," and "grinding" to simultaneously dry and flatten the leaves against the wok's sloped sides. The leaves cool for 40 to 60 minutes, then undergo second firing at lower temperature for 20 to 25 minutes using primarily the "grinding" and "pressing" techniques to achieve the tea's characteristic flat, sword-shaped appearance. One skilled processor can finish 1 to 1.5 kilograms of fresh leaves per day, which yields approximately 250 to 350 grams of finished tea. The China Tea Research Institute measured the chemical composition of Xi Hu Longjing in 2019 and found catechin content averaging 12.4 percent, amino acid content averaging 3.8 percent, and caffeine content averaging 2.9 percent, with the amino acid-to-catechin ratio contributing to the tea's characteristic sweet flavor with minimal bitterness.

Longjing shrimp, the signature dish pairing local tea with food, uses live freshwater shrimp from Taihu Lake measuring 4 to 5 centimeters in length, preferably female shrimp carrying eggs. The shrimp are blanched for 30 seconds, then stir-fried with Longjing tea leaves picked the same day, the tea infusing its flavor into the shrimp during the 60-second cooking process. Song dynasty records describe a similar preparation method, though the specific pairing with Longjing tea first appears in Qing Dynasty texts from the 1780s. The dish's standardized preparation was codified by Hangzhou restaurants in the 1950s and appears on the official Hangzhou municipal intangible cultural heritage list as of 2017.

The Qiantang River tidal bore, locally called the Silver Dragon, reaches Hangzhou's eastern outskirts where the river narrows from 100 kilometers wide at the bay to 3 kilometers within the city. The bore forms on the first through fifth and fifteenth through twentieth days of each lunar month, reaching maximum height during the autumnal equinox when it can exceed 3 meters tall and travel at 40 kilometers per hour. The Qianlong Emperor watched the bore from a viewing platform in 1757, and annual bore-watching festivals have occurred since the Tang Dynasty. The Yanguan section of the river 50 kilometers east of Hangzhou provides the most consistent viewing point where the bore arrives 40 minutes after high tide at Zhapu, allowing predictable scheduling documented in tide tables published by the Hangzhou Maritime Bureau.

Meijiawu Village, 6 kilometers southwest of West Lake, contains 520 hectares of tea gardens worked by 1,800 residents across 400 households as of the 2020 census. The village opened to tourism in 1985 and now operates 180 registered teahouses where visitors can purchase tea directly from farming families, watch processing demonstrations, and drink tea in courtyards overlooking the terraced gardens. Premier Zhou Enlai visited Meijiawu five times between 1957 and 1963 to observe rural collectivization and tea production methods, and the house where he stayed in 1958 is preserved as a museum opened in 2008. Village income from tea cultivation and tourism reached 280 million yuan in 2022 according to the Xihu District government.

The China National Tea Museum, opened in 1991, sits 4 kilometers south of West Lake on a 4.7-hectare site with 8,000 square meters of exhibition space. The museum's permanent collection includes 600 tea-processing tools, 2,100 tea wares from the Tang through Qing dynasties, and botanical specimens of 260 tea plant varieties. Interactive displays demonstrate the six categories of tea processing—green, white, yellow, oolong, black, and post-fermented—using equipment that visitors operate under staff supervision. The surrounding tea garden contains plants of all major Chinese tea cultivars arranged by province of origin. Admission has remained free since 2011.

West Lake's management costs run approximately 200 million yuan annually according to the Hangzhou West Lake Scenic Area Management Committee, funded through municipal budget allocation rather than entrance fees. The decision to eliminate the entrance fee in 2002 made West Lake one of the first 5A-rated scenic areas in the country to offer free admission. Tourist visits reached 28.4 million in 2019 before pandemic restrictions; 2023 figures recorded 24.6 million visits. The lake authority employs 380 full-time gardeners who maintain the causeways, islands, and shoreline plantings, and operates 14 electric-powered boats that remove surface debris daily.