October 26, 2009 6

HuXingTing Teahouse 湖心亭 (Shanghai)

By in 08: Shanghai, Travel

huxinting teahouse
We went to all the touristy sights on the first two days, such as Nanjing east road (yikes, it’s like Time square + 3rd street Promenade), the bund (half of it was under construction right now) and Yu Garden at the old city. After enjoying the quiet and beautiful Yu Garden, we did what many tourists would do – had a tea break at the historic HuXingTing teahouse that’s right outside of the garden.

huxinting teahouse
HuXingTing means “pavilion on the center of the lake”, for some reason there’s always a large crowd surrounds it so you have to elbow your way through the narrow bridge to get to it. However not much people were actually inside. The interior looks like it hasn’t changed since the 1800s, which was when this pavilion became a tea house.

huxinting teahouse

There were lots of tea to choose from on the menu, I already forgot what’s the tea we got, one of them was Pu erh for sure. They came with snacks: tea quail eggs, dry bean curd, mochi and pickled olives. The quail eggs were pretty good but the others were so-so.

It was a nice place to get away from the crowd and have a nice tea break. We’d soon found out tea (or coffee) breaks were very needed and essential in Shanghai for us! Also a note of advise, don’t take the metro to get to Yu Garden, it was an inconvenient walk from the metro station, just take the taxi.

HuXingTing Teahouse 湖心亭
No. 257 Yuyuan Road (it’s right next to Yu Garden)

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6 Responses to “HuXingTing Teahouse 湖心亭 (Shanghai)”

  1. Nice to see a post on tea! I personally have not been to a teahouse and this looks very interesting indeed. I like the decor a lot 🙂 as well as the fact you got pu erh tea which I also enjoy.

  2. christine says:

    Freda – I’m so jealous – I was at the Garden at night but did not have time to eat at the tea house since we were with a tour group – arghhhh! Must go back…miss you! (Lochlan is so much work – who knew?!)

  3. Jason Witt says:

    Nice to hear about some travels in China. You got Puerh? That’s my favorite tea. Maybe not available at Chinese restaurants here in the US but everywhere in the real China. It’s the good tea. –Spirituality of Tea

  4. Freda says:

    Hey Chris~ once Lochlan is old enough you can bring her to travel anywhere you want!

    ETE: what’s amazing is that the decor here is authentic and preserved from Ming Dynasty.

    Hi Jason: Puerh tea is so good (good for digestion) but it’s so heavy as well, I often wonder if my teeth will turn brown if I drink it everyday.

  5. Vivian says:

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  6. Heydi says:

    I am at the Huxinting Teahouse having tea and eating sweet meats. It is raining outside, and it is beautiful, the perfect time to be in Shanghai.

    I agree, better take a taxi, I took the metro and it was fine but when you get out of the station the signs are non existent.