Tea Retreat at Moganshan, Zhejiang

Tea Adventures in ChinaChinese Tea Aesthetic

Oct 20

Written By Charlene Tranquil Tuesdays

Retreat Surrounded by Tea Fields

Rose Garden and Rows of Tea Bushes

Rows of Tea Bushes

Tea Picker Walking Back with Freshly Plucked Tea Leaves

Moganshan, Zhejiang © 2013 Tranquil Tuesdays

Finished Yellow Tea

Close Up on the Tile Design on the Traditional Chinese Architecture Roof

Bamboo Forest Nearby

Was like entering a scene from a kung fu movie. Fun Fact the epic movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” did film some scenes in the famous bamboo forest here!

One of the old grand estates still standing

from when Moganshan was THE place the fancy people of Chinese society holidayed in the 19th century till 1930’s.

Are those some tea plants growing wild?

Looks Like It (the tea plant)

Looking Out from the Top of the Hill

Bringing home a tea plant cutting

Moganshan, Zhejiang is about 2.5 hours southwest of Shanghai and while a tea growing region, also has a fun glamorous past.

At the turn of the 20th century, Shanghai was one of the most glamorous global cities. One of my favorite books to learn more about this fascinating era is: Shanghai Rise and Fall of a Decadent City. Shanghai is also a very hot place in the summer, so naturally, the elite needed an escape and voila Moganshan became this hot spot.

Dancing in one of Shanghai’s famous nightclubs in 1926 photo credit

As this Vogue article suggests Moganshan is “the Hamptons of China” for a specific period in local history of that region. China is big and the history is long so there have been many “Hamptons” aka locales that are popular for the elite to go to enjoy the pleasures of countryside living.

“As early as the 1800s, Moganshan was a booming summer hot spot for wealthy Shanghai residents seeking refuge from the city swelter. Over the next century, visitors built more than 300 European-style stone mansions among the hills, where a thriving community included all the necessities of the time: churches, tennis courts, banks, bookstores, bakeries, and swimming pools.”

Wandering around Moganshan and exploring old crumbling European inspired residences with Art Deco details was a romantic and haunting journey. We even stumbled upon an old stone residence that had some wild tea plants growing in the front yard! (see photos above)

Yellow Tea in Moganshan

We also took our time in Moganshan as an opportunity to learn more about the local tea specialty of Mogan Yellow Bud (yellow tea) visiting with a few local producers.

The region has some small yellow-tea making operations which is relatively rare tea in Chinese tea production and certainly very rare in world tea production.