Related tea: Anji Baicha (安吉白茶)
I have been wanting to travel to Anji ever since Anji Baicha became my tea of choice while I am at work. Anji is famous for being where ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ was filmed and is only a 3-hour drive from Shanghai.
Anji is unfortunately a dirty, dust-covered town. As an industrial center for bamboo it appears furniture manufacturing is the major local industry. The bamboo tourist parks are located 10-15 km to the SW of the city. The Anji China Big Sea of Bamboo (安吉中国大竹海) is of great natural beauty and worth the extra drive from the city (keep driving beyond the Bamboo Expo Garden and follow the brown tourism traffic signs).
The Anji Bamboo Expo Garden (安吉竹子博览园) is closer to the city and has pandas, but can be a little disappointing if you do not like heavily-visited Chinese tourist destinations or are not a kid who likes amusement rides.
The real find for this China Tea Trail was the village of Xilongxian (西龙县) located just to the NE of Anji town proper. Xilongxian is the base for Anji White Tea (安吉白茶基地).
Within the village there is a White Tea Street (白茶街) where you can find a number of tea retailers and wholesales.
The street was pretty abandoned when we visited, but October is almost the end of green tea season. There are a number of concrete pillars with ‘tea’ carved into them in various languages.
Talking to a number of the wholesale vendors it seemed almost all of them also had a retail presence in Shanghai’s Tianshan Tea City (天山茶城) near Zhongshan Park.
Of course, we picked up some tea for gifts.
The highlight of the trip was a drive along a quiet country road just south of Xilongxian (the road south of Xilong Central School).
Rolling hills, tea plantations and no tourists made this a relaxing and beautiful spot.
