A foreign student from Georgia displays her skills in making tea at the final of "Cha Ren Zhi Jia" competition in Yangtze River Delta held at China National Tea Museum in Hangzhou, a city in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, on April 10, 2011. (Photo by Li Zhong, Xinhua)

A father displays his skills in making tea while being accompanied by his daughter's guqin (a seven-stringed plucked instrument) at the final of "Cha Ren Zhi Jia" competition in Yangtze River Delta held at China National Tea Museum in Hangzhou, a city in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, on April 10, 2011. (Photo by Li Zhong, Xinhua)

China's only museum dedicated to tea. There are tea exhibits and precious teaware. The National Tea Museum was opened in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1991. It is located in Longjing (Dragon Well) Village, west of charming West Lake, and covers an area of 22,000 square meters (about 5.4 acres) with a 3500 square meter (about 0.9 acres) construction area.

The museum is comprised of four groups of buildings which display the history and development of tea in China. The exhibition building is divided into six halls to show the history of growing and processing of tea. They are the Hall of Tea History, the Kaleidoscope Hall, the Hall of Tea Properties, the Tea-friendship Hall, the Tea Sets Hall, and the Tea Customs Hall. Here, different halls illuminate different aspects of tea and its culture in the long history. The Tea Customs Hall is recommended. Here visitors can discover the great impact of tea on the lives of various minority groups of the country. The Kaleidoscope Hall features more than three hundred kinds of tea, including the six basic types of tea of the country and some reprocessed teas. To learn more about these kinds of tea, take a digital earphone upon arrival.

Admission Fee: Free
Opening Hours: 8:30-16:30 (Oct. 8 - the next Apr. 30); 9:00-17:00 (May 1 - Oct. 7) Close on Monday