Hanging on to the past

Temple tea picking. Photos By Matt Hodges / For China Daily

A luxury resort and Hangzhou authorities are safeguarding the cultural heritage of the city, one of seven ancient Chinese capitals.

Pang Ying is like a female Indiana Jones amid the Terraces of Dragon Well Tea, protecting the integrity of one of China's most cherished and costly green tea brands by roaming the verdant hillsides of Zhejiang's Hangzhou in her spare time.

The temples of doom would be anything but - seven ancient Buddhist temples scattered around a traditional Chinese village that has been remodeled as Amanfayun, one of three luxury Aman properties in China that blend harmoniously with their surroundings.

"In Hangzhou we have the best soil for tea trees," said Ms Pang, the founder of He Chaguan tea house chain. "Smokers seem to prefer the Meijiawu brand, but a lot of my customers like Shifen, which smells like chestnuts and fried rice."

She was referring to strains of the tea known in Chinese as Longjing. Most of the middle-aged lady's hillside stops are aimed at quality control in a bid to fend off competition from lower-quality brands that try to pass themselves as West Lake Longjing tea.

But, as with sparkling wines from Champagne in France, only local variants qualify for this honor. She posts instructive video diaries of her tours of duty on Youku.com.

Ms Pang hails from Hangzhou, a leafy paradise famous for its West Lake, beautiful women and tea, all of which linger in the memory and taste buds, respectively, long after they have been seen or experienced.

Its allure is such that House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou even conjured up a nocturnal light and dancing show on the lake called Impressions of West Lake.