Fuchun Resort

Property was very well maintained given that it was more than 10 years old. Our last two visits were around 10 and 12 years ago, so we were expecting the place to be a bit run-down. Surprisingly, it was pretty well-maintained and the quality of the food, especially at the Chinese restaurant had improved. It was also good to see that the hotel is now offering more activities (like nature walks and bamboo shoot picking). We had proposed that they conduct more activities around 10 years ago, so we were happy to see them doing it this time. It was also kind of the hotel to give us an upgrade for two of the rooms. We were traveling in a group of 6 and had booked 3 rooms.

The tea picking activity was a utter rip-off. Before we signed up, we were told we would be taken to tea-picking on their plantation by someone experienced and taught how to dry the tea leaves after that etc. At RMB350 per person for a 1-hour program, we were expecting to at least learn a few things about Longjing tea and the picking and the processing of the tea. However, they just sent one of their SECURITY GUARDS (dressed in his security guard uniform!!) to bring us to the plantation to pick the tea and that was it! All the guard explained was that we needed to pick the ones with two leaves and one shoot. Nothing else was taught. When we brought the tea-pickings back to the hotel, we were just told to leave it with the guy who was drying the leaves at the machine. He said he was busy and asked us to come back later to get the dried leaves. There was no explanation whatsoever about the drying of the tea leaves. Given that we were inexperienced tea pickers, the amount of tea we were able to pick in that short span of time was obviously very little. We would have been able to purchase a much bigger, better quality and better packaged pack of tea leaves from their gift shop for just RMB190 per pack. We felt very cheated and this episode left a sour taste in an otherwise very pleasant stay. It would be better for the hotel to scrap this activity entirely if they cannot offer a decent service. This is totally unacceptable, disrespectful to guests and not in line with the image of Fuchun Resort.