Shaoxing Shopping

Orchid Shaoxing is home to orchids. The town cultivates a great variety of orchids with various shapes, colors, and fragrances. One orchid can make a room fragrant for a long time. The traditional orchids include “Laimei”, "Anhai”, "Huanqiuheding”, and “Butterfly”.

The rare Green Cloud orchid is under the state protection. Orchids produced in Shaoxing, wonders in the eyes of florists at home, sell well on the national market. The rare flowers are also exported in large quantity to Japan and countries in Southeast Asia. Orchid is now Shaoxing’s city flower.

Dried Vegetable Mustard, cabbage and other vegetables can be dried. Most of these dried vegetables are home made. It is made this way: first dry the vegetable and let it go yellow, and then salt it before put the pickled the vegetable into a jar for storage. The finished product looks darkish yellow with a special aroma.

The vegetable is good for relieving summer heat, promoting the production of body liquid and stimulating the appetite and removing the cough. For this reason, the soup with the dried vegetable in summer is a must for local residents in Shaoxing. The dried vegetable steamed with Braised Pork Cube is a special dish of Shaoxing and is listed in The Chinese Cookbook.

Pingshui Pearl Tea With a reputation both at home and abroad, the pearl tea produced in Pingshui, Shaoxing, is regarded as the green gem in soft drinks. The tea looks round and tight in the shape and has a delightful green color. Its flavor and aroma stay long in the boiled water. Some tea drinkers love it so much that they proclaim that this is the best tea in the region south of the Yangtze River. Pingshui in the Kuaiji Mountain was a distributing center of tea products for neighboring counties in the Tang Dynasty.

Pingshui is considered as the home of pearl tea. Rizhu Tea, a special kind of pearl tea produced in Pingshui, was a tribute to royal courts over centuries in feudal China. It is also one of the major Chinese teas that sell well on international markets. In 1984, Tiantan Brand special grade pearl tea won the state quality golden medal. In 1985, the tea won an international golden prize in Spain.

Shaoxing Silk Home to silk, Shaoxing’s silk production goes back to as early as the Spring and Autumn period. At that time, Goujian, king of the Yue state, encouraged his people to produce more farm products and silk products in the efforts to restore the state’s military and economic power. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, Shaoxing was not only a key region where silkworm farming was very prosperous, but also a region where silk products accounted for a large proportion of China’s total silk output.

Today, Shaoxing has 226 businesses specialized in manufacturing silk products such as factory-reeled silk, spun silk, twisted silk as well as silk bedcovers and silk garments. These silk products are characterized by a vast variety and fine workmanship. Silk products made in Shaoxing are best known for the fine texture, soft feel, and bright colors. They sell well both at home and abroad.