West Lake Tour
National Tea Museum is the only state-level museum specialized in the theme
of tea culture. It is also the largest tea museum in China with the most
comprehensive collection of tea utensils and other relative exhibits on view.
The museum is made up of five themed buildings: exhibition, tea drinking, tea
performance, multiple functions, and international exchanges. The exhibition
hall is the main body of the museum. Branching off it are areas dedicated to the
history of Chinese tea, tea drinking customs, tea utensils used in past
dynasties, and the knowledge surrounding tea culture, and even the complicated
process of picking and roasting tea leaf.
The two locations dedicated to tea drinking and tea performance are designed
to introduce the ways of drinking tea and show the diverse tea-related
performances in different regions of the world. The two are also considered the
denotation and supplement for tea culture.
Visitors here not only appreciate but also take part in the
tea-drinking ceremony. Guests can choose their own particular tea, for example
the Chinese Longjing tea named as the imperial tea by the Emperor Qianlong
during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The multiple function rooms generally hold international seminars and
exchanges on any sort of tea culture. That is to say, National Tea Museum would
rather be an international-level research center on tea and tea-related culture
than just a museum showing the history of tea. Each year, tea professionals and
aficionados come to Hangzhou city from all over the world for the "West Lake
International Tea Festival". Tea, as the symbol of world peace and friendship,
connects people from all over the world.
National Tea Museum plays an important role on the tea stage and offers the
chance and space for international research and exchange about tea and tea
culture. So far, the museum has been a hot tourist spot and an educational base
that attracts millions of people from both home and abroad. Undoubtedly,
National Tea Museum will help begin a new era in tea
development.
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