TeaHQ

Xihu (West Lake)

The hills west of Hangzhou that produce Longjing, and the most tightly policed tea name in China. Within the protected area the sub-villages are themselves ranked — Shifeng, Longjing, Yunqi, Hupao, Meijiawu — with Shifeng’s thin, weathered stony soil conventionally rated highest and priced accordingly. The tea is pan-fired by hand against the wall of a heated wok, which is where the flat blade shape and the toasted-chestnut note both come from.

西湖China30–400 metresAlso called West LakeAlso called ShifengAlso called Meijiawu

Protected designation

West Lake Longjing is a Chinese protected geographical indication covering a defined area of Hangzhou; a wider Zhejiang Longjing designation covers production outside it.

A protected designation governs who may use the name, and in which jurisdictions. It is not a quality mark and it does not certify how any particular lot was made — it settles what the word on the packet is allowed to mean.

Elevation

Recorded at 30–400 metres.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. The gardens are low hills rather than mountains; Longjing’s reputation rests on soil, aspect and processing rather than altitude.

Soil

Thin, well-drained weathered sandstone and shale on the slopes, with heavier soils on the flat. Growers attribute Shifeng’s premium to the poorer, stonier ground rather than to a cultivar difference.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. A grower and trade explanation rather than a measured soil-to-cup relationship.

When it is picked

The mingqian and yuqian system at its most commercially consequential. West Lake Longjing picked before Qingming commands a multiple of the same garden's leaf picked a fortnight later, and the premium rests on genuinely slower growth in cold early-spring weather and on the fact that the window lasts days. Picking runs on into May at falling prices. A warm March collapses the distinction and the market prices it anyway.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How production is organised

Household plots inside a designated production area on the edge of a major city, worked by families who pan-fire their own leaf against the wall of a heated wok. The combination of tiny supply, enormous name recognition and an urban tourist market is exactly the condition in which origin fraud flourishes, and it does.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How the name is written

Also transliterated as xi hu, xihu, west lake. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.

Teas this region is known for

  • Longjing — Nutty and sweet with a soft body and very little grip. Where Japanese greens go marine and savoury, Longjing goes toasted and sweet — the clearest single illustration of what pan-firing does that steaming does not.
  • Jiu Qu Hong Mei — Delicate for a black tea, with a plum-and-rose character and very little grip. Easy to over-steep into something ordinary.

Other growing regions in China

The neighbouring districts are the useful comparison: they share a country, a grading convention and often a cultivar, so what differs between them is closer to terroir than anything a cross-border comparison can isolate.

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No external document stands behind the elevation band, the climate note or the character described above, which is why each carries its confidence in the open.

How TeaHQ handles sources

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.

  • Xihu vs Dongting Mountain — The homes of Longjing and Bi Luo Chun, two hours apart and organised on completely different principles. One is a tightly policed hierarchy of ranked sub-villages; the other is an orchard system in which tea is interplanted among fruit trees and the fruit is part of the argument.
  • Xihu vs Songyang — The protected name and the market that supplies a great deal of what carries it. West Lake is a small defined area with ranked villages; Songyang, in mountainous south-west Zhejiang, runs one of China’s largest wholesale green-leaf markets, where growers from across the region sell fresh leaf daily through the spring.