Tea in China: types, plantations and regions

In short: all Chinese tea comes from one plant, Camellia sinensis. The six types (green, white, yellow, oolong, red and dark) differ in how the leaves are processed: whether they're withered, fired, rolled, and how far they're oxidised. The most expensive tea comes from the first spring harvest, made only from buds and processed by hand. The best Longjing picked before the Qingming festival costs over ¥5,000 per jin (500 g), while a later harvest fired by machine costs many times less. Day to day, Chinese people drink tea at ¥100–400 per jin. The best place to try it is a teahouse: below you'll find three in each of 10 cities (luxury, atmospheric and budget), with names and addresses in Chinese.

The teahouse we remember best is Heming in Chengdu's People's Park: bamboo chairs, lidded cups and locals playing mahjong at the next table. In Beijing we were surprised to find quiet courtyard teahouses hidden in the hutongs a few steps from the crowded streets, and in Shanghai there was tea at Huxinting on the pond by Yu Garden: expensive, but with a view of the zigzag bridge and old rooftops you won't forget.

Correct as of October 2026. Tea prices are approximate retail prices in China per jin (斤, 500 g). We checked the teahouses in October 2026, but check opening hours in Amap or Dianping before you go.

The six types of Chinese tea

Flower teas (花茶) are a separate group, most often jasmine: green tea layered with fresh jasmine flowers several times until it soaks up their scent. In Beijing it's the most popular everyday tea.

How tea is made: from bush to cup

Picking

• The younger the leaf, the more expensive the tea. The most valuable are buds only (单芽), then a bud with one leaf (一芽一叶) and a bud with two leaves (一芽二叶). It takes 4–5 jin of fresh leaves to make 1 jin of dry tea.
• Timing: green teas picked before the Qingming festival, around 5 April, are called 明前 (míngqián, "before Qingming") and are the most expensive. Those picked before the Guyu festival, around 20 April (雨前, yǔqián), are cheaper. Summer and autumn harvests cost even less, although autumn Tieguanyin, for example, has its fans.
• By hand or by machine: the best teas, especially bud-only teas, are picked by hand. Everyday and teabag teas are cut by machine, together with older leaves and stalks.

Processing step by step

1. Withering (萎凋): the spread-out leaves lose water and soften. For white tea, that's almost all the processing there is.
2. "Kill-green" (杀青, shāqīng): brief heating, usually in a hot wok, which stops oxidation. That's why green tea stays green.
3. Rolling (揉捻): the leaves are rolled or flattened. This breaks the cells, so the tea releases its flavour more easily when brewed.
4. Oxidation (Chinese colloquially call it 发酵, "fermentation"): exposed to air, the leaves darken. Red tea is fully oxidised, oolong partly, green not at all.
5. Drying and roasting (干燥, 焙火): in the sun (that's how pu-erh leaves are dried), in an oven or over charcoal. The best Wuyi Mountain oolongs are roasted over charcoal several times, with breaks, for many hours.
6. Ageing (dark teas only): raw pu-erh (生普) is pressed into 357 g cakes and stored for years. Ripe pu-erh (熟普) is sped up by piling damp leaves (渥堆) for several weeks. This method was developed in Kunming in the 1970s.

Handmade or machine-made?

For centuries tea was made entirely by hand. Today most of it is made with the help of machines, and handwork multiplies the price.

• Longjing is fired by hand in a wok: the tea master presses, smooths and turns the leaves with their palm in the hot pan, which gives them their flat shape. Machines arrived in Longjing production around 2005. Today there are three kinds: fully handmade, semi-handmade (machine plus hand finishing) and machine-made. For the best Longjing from the Shifeng area, the final firing must be done by hand.
• How to tell them apart: hand-fired tea is drier (up to about 7% moisture, machine-made about 9%), heavier, and sinks faster once you add water. Machine-made tea is lighter, more uniform and more likely to float.
• Pu-erh is often still picked by hand and sun-dried. Cakes are traditionally pressed with a stone weight, and with hydraulic presses in big factories.

How much Chinese tea costs

Approximate retail prices in China. The same name can cost very different amounts depending on where it's grown, when it's picked and the vintage.

Old pu-erhs, decades old, are collector's items: Shanghai teahouses have charged up to around ¥100,000 (about 58060 PLN) for a single brewing of the rarest ones.

Tea regions

How Chinese people drink tea

• Lidded cup (盖碗, gàiwǎn): the leaves are brewed right in the cup, and the lid holds them back when you drink or pour.
• Gongfu cha (功夫茶): a small teapot, lots of leaves and many short infusions of a dozen or so seconds each. We describe the whole ritual step by step below.
• Green tea is often drunk straight from a glass with the leaves floating in it.
• In a teahouse you pay for the tea, and hot water refills are free and unlimited. In Chengdu the waiters pour it spectacularly from long-spout kettles (长嘴壶).
• In the south (Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau), "drinking tea" (饮茶, yum cha) means eating dim sum. To ask for a refill, leave the teapot lid ajar, and when someone pours you tea, thank them by tapping the table twice with two fingers (more in our article on etiquette).

The tea ritual: gongfu cha step by step

Gongfu cha (功夫茶, written 工夫茶 in Chaozhou, roughly "tea made with skill and patience") is a way of brewing tea from Chaozhou in Guangdong province and southern Fujian. The Chaozhou version has been on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage since 2008, and its full performance has 22 steps. Day to day, just a few of them are enough. This is how tea is brewed at home, in teahouses and at every tasting in a tea market, most often oolongs and pu-erh. The tea market is the easiest place to see it: the seller will brew any tea you want to try this way.

The tea set

The lidded cup has three parts and is also called 三才碗, the "cup of the three powers": the lid is heaven, the saucer is earth and the cup itself is man.

Step by step

1. Warming the set (温杯 wēn bēi): the host pours boiling water over the lidded cup or teapot, the fairness pitcher and the cups, then empties the water onto the tray. The cups are moved with tongs so nobody touches the rims the guests will drink from.
2. Showing the leaves (赏茶 shǎng chá): the dry leaves go round the guests on the 茶荷 so they can look at them and smell them.
3. Adding the leaves (投茶 tóu chá): far more leaves than in the West, about 7–8 g per 110 ml for oolong, or roughly a third of the cup. Once wet, the rolled balls unfurl and fill it completely.
4. Rinsing (洗茶 xǐ chá, also 醒茶 xǐng chá, "waking the tea"): the leaves are covered with boiling water, which is poured away at once. This is done with oolongs, pu-erhs and other dark teas, but usually not with green or white tea. The rinse is sometimes poured over the little clay figures on the tray (茶宠 chá chǒng, "tea pets").
5. Brewing (冲泡 chōngpào): the water is poured from a height so the leaves swirl, then the lid goes on for a moment: 5–15 seconds for the first infusions, a little longer for each one after. A clay teapot also gets boiling water poured over the outside to keep it hot.
6. Pouring off (出汤 chū tāng): the whole infusion, down to the last drop, goes into the fairness pitcher. The leaves mustn't sit in water, or the next infusion turns bitter. The traditional Chaozhou style has no fairness pitcher: the host pours straight from the teapot, circling over the three cups (关公巡城, "General Guan Gong patrols the city walls"), then shares out the last, strongest drops one by one into each cup (韩信点兵, "Han Xin counts his soldiers").
7. Filling the cups (分茶 fēn chá): cups are filled to about 70%. The saying goes 酒满敬人，茶满欺人: a full glass of alcohol shows respect, while a full cup of tea is rude, because you can't comfortably pick it up when it's hot. The most important or oldest guest is served first, and the host pours their own cup last.
8. Drinking (品茶 pǐn chá): first the aroma, then the tea in three small sips. Chinese people like to point out that the character 品 ("to taste") is made of three 口 ("mouth") characters. The cup is usually held with the thumb and index finger at the rim and the middle finger under the base. This grip is called 三龙护鼎, "three dragons guard the cauldron".
9. More infusions: oolong lasts for 6–10 infusions, a good pu-erh for more than 10, and each tastes a little different. At the end it's worth looking at the unfurled leaves (叶底 yèdǐ). Whole, springy leaves are a sign of good tea.

Water temperature

Drinking tea with Chinese hosts

• Drink straight away. The infusions are small and cool quickly, and the host waits for you to empty your cup before brewing the next one.
• Your host will refill an empty cup at once. When you've had enough, leave a little tea in it and say 够了，谢谢 (gòu le, xièxie, "that's enough, thank you").
• To thank someone for pouring, tap the table with your fingers (叩指礼 kòuzhǐ lǐ): the index and middle fingers, slightly bent, a few times. Legend says the custom was invented by the companions of the Qianlong Emperor. Travelling incognito, the emperor poured tea for them himself, and since they couldn't kneel before him without giving him away, they "bowed" with their fingers.
• The teapot spout shouldn't point at a guest (壶嘴不对人). Hosts put the teapot down with the spout facing to the side.
• A curiosity: in the Qing dynasty, an official who picked up his cup and invited his guest to drink was signalling that the meeting was over (端茶送客, "serve tea to see the guest off"). Today you'll only see it in historical TV dramas.

Teahouses: three in each of 10 cities

In each city we picked three places: luxury, with the best teas and service, atmospheric, where you'll see how tea is drunk here, and budget. Show the Chinese address to your taxi driver or enter it in Amap (how to do it).

Beijing

Shanghai

Chengdu

For tea with Sichuan opera and a face-changing show, go to Shunxing (顺兴老茶馆, 成都市武侯区世纪城路166号). We visit it in our Chengdu travel plans.

Chongqing

Wuhan

Xi'an

Shenzhen

Guangzhou

You can buy tea at one of China's biggest tea markets, Fangcun (芳村茶叶市场).

Hong Kong

Macau

Where tea reigns: places beyond the big cities

Hangzhou

More places for tea lovers

• Kunming: Kangle Tea Culture City (康乐茶文化城, 昆明市官渡区官南大道1683号), one of China's largest pu-erh markets, with hundreds of shops and tastings.
• Wuyi Mountains (Fujian): the home of Da Hong Pao and Lapsang Souchong. The six Da Hong Pao "mother bushes" grow on a cliff in the Jiulongke gorge. No leaves have been picked from them since 2006.
• Anxi (Fujian): the capital of Tieguanyin.
• Fuding (Fujian): white teas, including Baihao Yinzhen.
• Xishuangbanna (Yunnan): ancient tea trees and pu-erh villages such as Lao Banzhang.
• Mount Emei (Sichuan): Zhuyeqing tea from plantations on the slopes of the sacred mountain, which we climb in several of our plans.

FAQ

What is the most popular tea in China?

Green: it accounts for over half of all tea produced in China. In the north, especially Beijing, people drink a lot of jasmine, in the south oolongs, and in Yunnan pu-erh.

What's the difference between red tea and black tea?

They're the same tea. The Chinese call it red (红茶) after the colour of the brew, and Westerners call it black after the colour of the leaves. Chinese "black" tea (黑茶) is dark tea, such as pu-erh.

Why are some Chinese teas so expensive?

It comes down to where they're grown, when they're picked, the size of the leaves and handwork. The most expensive are the first spring harvests of buds only, fired by hand, from the best villages. Pu-erh also gains value with age.

Where can I buy good tea in China?

At tea markets, where you can taste several teas before buying, or in shops of well-known brands, such as Wuyutai (吴裕泰) and Zhang Yiyuan (张一元) in Beijing. Avoid shops that strangers in the street lead you to.

What does a Chinese tea ceremony look like?

The most popular is gongfu cha from Chaozhou. The tea set is warmed with boiling water, the leaves are briefly rinsed, then brewed many times for a few to a dozen-odd seconds in a small lidded cup or clay teapot. The tea is poured into a "fairness pitcher" and shared out into tiny cups, filled to about 70%. You drink in small sips and thank whoever pours by tapping the table with your fingers.

Do I have to eat something in a Chinese teahouse?

No. You pay for the tea, and snacks (seeds, fruit, biscuits) are optional. The exception is dim sum teahouses in the south, where tea goes with the food.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Tea processing (processing steps and tea types)
• The Paper: prices of pre-Qingming Longjing (2025, in Chinese)
• NetEase: handmade vs machine-made Longjing (in Chinese)
• China Intangible Cultural Heritage: 潮州工夫茶艺 (Chaozhou gongfu cha, national list since 2008, 22 steps; in Chinese)
• Zdic: 盖碗 (the "cup of the three powers"; in Chinese)
• South China Morning Post: tea to 70% of the cup, alcohol to the brim
• Prices of Tieguanyin, Da Hong Pao, white tea and pu-erh: shop price lists and tea reviews from 2023–2025 (Zhihu, 51puer)
• Teahouses: Trip.com, Time Out Hong Kong, the Michelin Guide, press articles from 2025–2026 and checks in the Amap and Baidu maps (October 2026)

Tea in our travel plans

In our Along the Yangtze plan you drink Longjing among the plantations near Hangzhou, in our Chengdu plans, such as Spicy Chengdu, you sit in the Heming teahouse among the locals, and in The Road to Shangri-La you taste pu-erh in its homeland, Yunnan. All with addresses in Chinese and prices. See all our plans.