What should I avoid in Hangzhou?

The tea scam is Hangzhou's signature con, and it has been running for at least 15 years. Two or three young locals approach you near the Broken Bridge or along Beishan Road, strike up a conversation in decent English, and suggest visiting a traditional tea ceremony nearby. The teahouse is real. The ceremony is real. The bill is ¥800-2,000 per person for tea that costs ¥30 at any shop on Longjing Road. You'll feel the social pressure to pay because the hosts seem friendly and generous. They get a commission. If someone approaches you at West Lake speaking English and mentioning tea, walk the other direction. The same routine plays out near Lingyin Temple and at Hangzhou East Railway Station, where the approach tends to be a request for directions followed by the tea invitation.

Hefang Street runs about 460 meters south of West Lake and looks like every reconstructed ancient street in eastern China. The silk scarves at the stalls are mostly polyester blends priced at ¥150-300, when actual Hangzhou silk starts around ¥400-600 per meter at the China National Silk Museum's shop on Yuhuangshan Road. The candy-pulling demonstrations are photo ops attached to ¥20 sticks of sugar. That said, the street has one legitimate draw. Hu Qingyu Tang, a pharmacy founded in 1874, still operates from its original wooden-beamed hall. The smell of dried herbs and camphor hits you from 10 meters away. Walk through for that, skip the rest. For real Hangzhou silk, the museum shop or the wholesale stalls on the 2nd floor of the Silk Market on Xinhua Road are where locals buy.

Su Causeway on a Saturday in October feels like a subway car at rush hour. The 2.8km path fills with tour groups following guides holding numbered flags, and the six stone bridges become bottleneck points where foot traffic stops entirely. Weekday mornings before 8am are a different place. The lake still has mist on it, the willow branches hang low enough to brush your shoulders, and the only sound is the slap of wooden oars from the hand-rowed boats. Those cost ¥180 per hour, seat 6 people, and run from the official docks near Yue Fei Temple with no haggling needed. The electric cruise boats at ¥55 per person loop the same route with loudspeaker commentary in Mandarin only. Skip those. The north shore path between Beishan Road and the Zhejiang Provincial Museum is quieter at any hour.

Hangzhou's plum rain season, called meiyu, typically runs from mid-June to mid-July. Humidity sits above 85% and temperatures hover around 28-32°C. Your clothes will feel damp within 20 minutes of stepping outside. July and August are worse. Temperatures regularly reach 38-40°C, which earned Hangzhou its reputation as one of China's four furnaces. The best windows are late March through May, when cherry blossoms peak along the Su Causeway, and mid-September through November. October in Hangzhou has a specific smell. The osmanthus trees along Manjuelong Road fill the air with a sweet, almost apricot-like fragrance that the city builds an entire festival around. Typhoon tail-ends can bring heavy rain bands in August and September, occasionally flooding low-lying paths near West Lake for a day or two.

Taxis from Hangzhou East Railway Station to West Lake should cost ¥35-50 on the meter, about 30 minutes in normal traffic. Drivers who quote a flat fare of ¥100-150 are banking on your unfamiliarity. Metro Line 1 covers the same route in 25 minutes for ¥4. Fake Longjing tea is the other thing to watch for. Meijiawu Tea Village, about 8km west of West Lake, is marketed as the real Longjing source, but most shops there sell tea from Anhui province relabeled at 5-10× markup. The actual Longjing village is smaller, quieter, and 3km south of the lake. Even there, prices above ¥1,200 per 500g for pre-Qingming harvest likely mean you're paying a tourist premium. The China National Tea Museum on Longjing Road, founded in 1991, sells certified tea at posted prices with no bargaining theater.