Yangloudong Tea Town

Yangloudong, in the southwestern part of Chibi prefecture, has been an important tea production area for several centuries. The area's mild, humid climate and wooded hillsides produce a green tea with a distinctive character, and Yangloudong town still functions as a trading centre where you can buy directly from local producers. The tea culture here is quieter and less self-conscious than in better-known regions like Longjing or Wuyishan, which makes it more interesting for the traveller who wants to understand how tea is actually grown and traded rather than curated for tourists.

The best time to visit is April and May, when the spring tea harvest is underway and the hillsides are fragrant. Several tea estates around the town accept visitors for picking demonstrations and tasting sessions. This is not a polished agritourism operation in the Hangzhou or Fujian mould, but the tea is excellent and the setting — wooded hills above the Yangtze plain — is pleasant.

things to do sight
A story
Yangloudong tea was once significant enough in the international market to be known in English as "Pouchong" — a name derived from the district's Cantonese pronunciation. In the late Qing dynasty, the area was one of the major sources of brick tea traded along the overland tea routes to Russia and Central Asia, the same trade network that created the Tea Horse Road further west. The trade collapsed with the political disruptions of the twentieth century, but the area has revived as a domestic market producer.