Pinglin (坪林) and Shiding (石碇) have the most beautiful tea plantations that I’ve seen in the Greater Taipei Area.
As a big tea fan, I love visiting Pinglin and Shiding as a half- or full-day trip from Taipei. I’ve been there several times – with my family, on assignment for Travel in Taiwan magazine, and I’ve even been camping in the area.
A day trip to Pinglin and Shiding can include a combination of hiking, gorgeous tea plantation and Thousand Island Lake views, the excellent Pinglin Tea Museum, eating tea-infused foods, tasting or buying baozhong oolong tea (the main type grown in the area), and cycling past tea fields.
You can achieve most of this by taking a tea plantations tour (half-day or full day). But, of course, I’m going to tell you how to do it all by yourself in this article!
If you start your day early enough, you can potentially visit some other places in the same day, like Wulai hot spring or Jiufen & Shifen. I’ll tell you how below!
Pinglin and Shiding Introduction
Pinglin and Shiding are sparsely populated districts of New Taipei City, the huge city surrounding Taipei. Only Wulai and Pingxi districts have smaller populations.
In the past, the only highway from Taipei city to Yilan (the slow and winding Provincial Highway 9) passed through Shiding and Pinglin on the way.
Taipei people driving to Yilan for the weekend would take a break in Pinglin village to buy tea or eat a lunch of tea-infused foods.
The most common tea made in the area is baozhong tea (包種茶, also spelled Pouchong).
This is a variety of oolong tea which is only slightly fermented (oxidized), meaning it’s lighter in color and closer to a green tea in characteristics. It’s one of my favorite Taiwanese teas and has a subtle melon favor.
The tea is usually NOT rolled into little balls like many other Taiwanese oolongs are (including Alishan High Mountain tea), so it will seem lighter in a bag but take up more space than the same amount of a rolled tea. See my guide to Taiwanese teas for more info.
Related: Read about my favorite traditional tea houses and places to buy tea in Taipei.
When the much faster National Highway 5 (with the country’s longest tunnel) was built in 2006, it cut down the driving time from Taipei to Yilan by over an hour, but also caused Pinglin to go into decline because far fewer locals drive through it anymore.
Today, Pinglin is a sleepy village surrounded by tea plantations.
The most beautiful one, which you’ll see included on all the tea tours, is Bagua Tea Plantation (八卦茶園). It is in Shiding district, but you’ll pass by it when taking the bus to Pinglin.
The tea plantation overlooks Feicui Reservoir (翡翠水庫, also spelled Fei-Tsui), which supplies water to Taipei City. The reservoir is nicknamed “1000 Island Lake” (千島湖), which it borrows from a similar-looking water reservoir in Hangzhou, China.
The reservoir doesn’t even have many islands, but rather many bays and inlets. Nevertheless, it is extremely beautiful.
After the reservoir, it becomes Xindian River, which feeds into Tamsui river, flows through Taipei, and finally meets the sea at Tamsui, another district of New Taipei City.
Getting to Shiding and Pinglin
Unless you take a day tour like this one or this one, you will first need to ride the Taipei MRT to Xindian, the last stop going south on the MRT Green Line. Traveling time from Taipei Main Station is 23 minutes.
At Xindian MRT, go up the only exit to find the bus terminal right outside. Grab a snack and water from 7-Eleven if you need it!
If you want to go to Bagua Tea Plantation in Shiding first, take bus GR12 (see schedule) and ride it for 45 minutes to Shisangu (十三股, here). From there, it will be a 40-minute downhill walk to Bagua Tea Plantation (and slightly longer for the walk back up).
Swipe EasyCard to ride the bus.
If you want to go directly to Pinglin, take bus GR12 or 923 (see schedule) from Xindian MRT to Pinglin.
The GR12 (green 12 or 綠12) takes a smaller, more winding road (the original Highway 9) through Shiding to Pinglin. Get off at Pinglin station here. The 923 takes a straighter highway route – get off a New Taipei City Pinglin District Office stop here. Either bus takes about one hour.
Going back to Xindian, use GoogleMaps directions to find the appropriate bus stop and time. From Xindian, you can then return to Taipei or take bus 849 to Wulai Hot Spring (50 min). The bus to Wulai departs from here on the main road just outside the Xindian MRT bus terminal.
Some people hire a private driver for getting to Pinglin and other places. Find one on Klook, KKday, or see my list of private drivers.
With a private driver, you could potentially add a visit to Wulai, Yilan, Hsu’s Handpulled Noodles, Shenkeng Stinky Tofu Street, or Shifen & Jiufen on the same day. Choose one of the above, not all of them.
Bagua Tea Plantation and 1000 Island Lake
If you alight from Shisangu bus stop, use GoogleMaps directions to find your way down to Bagua Tea Plantation (set this as your destination).
For most of the way, you’ll be walking along a narrow car road through the forest, with occasional glimpses of tea plantations and the stunning Feicui Reservoir (or “1000 Island Lake”).
On the way, you’ll pass Tushitou Lookout (土虱頭觀景臺, here) which usually has a vendor selling snacks and tea oil soap. The view from here is beautiful, overlooking a big curve in Beishi River (which comes from Pinglin town) as it starts widening into a reservoir.
Shortly after, there’s a small parking lot (in case you’re driving and need somewhere to pull over) and some toilets here.
From there, you could turn right to find Yongan Trail, which goes all the way down to the reservoir (see map above). However, we will be turning left instead to reach Bagua Tea Plantation.
The spot called Bagua Tea Plantation on GoogleMaps is actually a restaurant overlooking the tea plantation. You can’t actually enter the private tea plantation, but the restaurant provides stunning views of it.
Surprisingly, the restaurant doesn’t serve any tea, and I’m not aware of any places you can drink tea in the area. You can do that later in Pinglin!
If you came by car, you can park at the restaurant, but you’ll need to spend at least TWD 500 in the restaurant to waive the parking fee.
If you don’t want to eat, walk just a few minutes further down the road to the free Bagua Tea Plantations Viewing Platform (八卦茶園景觀台, here). It looks down on Bagua Tea Plantation, with beautiful 1000 Island Lake in the background.
The viewing platform has some plants arranged in a bagua (八卦 or “eight trigrams”) shape. This is a traditional Chinese symbol representing eight mutually opposing forces of reality. The tea plantation takes its name from this symbol.
If you drove, you can’t park at the free platform (or anywhere else on the road with a red line). You’ll either need to pay for parking at the restaurant or park at the free parking lot I mentioned above and walk down to here.
Overall, budget 2-3 hours to walk down from the bus stop, enjoy the views, and walk back up to the same bus stop.
Pinglin Town
Whether you take the bus from Shisangu (Bagua Tea Plantation) or directly from Xindian, get off in the town center of Pinglin, which is not very big.
Do the following in whichever order suits you best. Everything is reachable on foot.
Pinglin Tea Museum
The top attraction in Pinglin village is Pinglin Tea Museum (坪林茶業博物館, official site). From the bus stop, you’ll need to cross the river to reach it. Entrance is TWD 80.
The museum one of the largest tea-focused museums in the world. It is built to resemble a traditional courtyard house in southern Fujian province with Jiangnan-style gardens around it.
Inside, you’ll learn about different types of tea, tea production, and the local variety, baozhong tea (包種茶).
“Baozhong” means “wrapped variety”, as it was traditional packaged in rectangular blocks and wrapped in paper. The below photo is an example I saw in the museum.
On the three-hectare museum grounds, which include several quiet sitting spots, I found some actual bushes of tea growing.
Cycling Past Tea Plantations
You can rent YouBikes from several spots in town, which are indicated on GoogleMaps and the YouBike app. If you don’t know how to rent one, read my YouBike guide. If you noticed that my bike above is not a YouBike, that’s because the photo was taken before YouBike became available in Pinglin.
Make your way to Pinglin Suspension Bridge (here) on the south side of town and cross it to access Pinglin Riverside Park and the cycling trails on the other side.
Note: as I write this in October 2024, the suspension bridge is closed for renovations. If that’s the case when you go (check GoogleMaps and see if it still says “temporarily closed”), cross Pinglin Old Bridge (here) in the town center instead then follow the riverside trail to Pinglin Riverside Park.
In Pinglin Riverside Park, you can cycle around it to find another bridge (here) which will cross another creek just before it feeds into Beishi River.
The trails on either side of this creek are called the Daiyuku Fish Observing Trail, because you can often see large fish swimming in the clear and very clean water of these protected tributaries to Feicui Reservoir.
Once you cross the above bridge, keep cycling and you’ll see some tea plantations in no time. You can cycle approximately 8 kilometers using the below map then come back. You’ll see the same map posted when you are there.
You don’t necessarily have to follow this route. When I last went, I just cycled in whichever direction seemed nice. There are more small roads and trails than the map indicates. I had no trouble finding my way back.
Budget about an hour to go for a nice cycling tour and come back to town.
Pinglin Old Street & Kuanyin Statue
Pinglin Old Street (坪林老街, here) is small and very quiet. It’s nothing like the packed and super touristy old streets like Jiufen Old Street, Shifen Old Street, and many others.
This one just has a few traditional shops where you can buy tea, tea oil, and other traditional local products. Watch for the cute hanging tea pots.
At the eastern end of town, there’s a Kuanyin Statue (here) on top of a hill, with a staircase going up to it. You can see it from various points in town. It’s a 10-minute walk from the town center, next to the tall Highway 5 overpass.
Where to Eat & Buy Tea in Pinglin
Pinglin is a great place to try tea-infused foods and buy delicious baozhong tea. I’ve personally tried all of the below restaurants.
For somewhere very close to where you will get on/off the bus in Pinglin, try Dong Mu He Tea House (東木河茶莊, here). Items on the menu include tea oil vermicelli noodles, fried tea oil chicken, tea oil hot pot, and local baozhong tea (hot or iced). The deep fried tofu is yummy, too.
You can just order tea if you want. There’s a menu with English and parking available.
Right next to it, Shunyi Tea House (順益茶莊, here) has even nicer meals but no English menu unfortunately.
We had Taiwanese sausages with tealeaves cooked into them, deep fried river shrimp garnished with dried tealeaves, steamed rice with deep, deep fried tofu, and steamed greens with fish flakes and sesame sauce.
A short walk from there, Big Head Vegetarian (大頭素食, here next to 7-Eleven) has various vegetarian dishes, including deep fried tea leaves (炸茶酥).
Hehuan Tea Banquet Restaurant (合歡茶宴風味餐廳, here) is on the Pinglin Tea Museum side of the river and has tea oil vermicelli, tea oil fried rice, deep fried tealeaves, tea oil fish, tea oil jelly, and many more baozhong tea dishes.
The dishes at Hehuan are large and meant for sharing, so this restaurant is best for groups. The menu is in Mandarin only.
Also on the museum side, Tea Flow (心茶合一, here) is a café with local teas, “tearamisu”, waffles, and the like. The patio has a view of an adjacent tea plantation.
If you want to buy tealeaves to take home, there are multiple small shops selling tea along the main road in Pinglin and along the PInglin Old Street.
The quality is not going to vary much between shops – you can’t really go wrong. Just choose a place that looks friendly and walk in! Most shop owners will be happy to prepare you a cup of tea to taste before you buy.
