On June 29, 2026, Mingshan county in Ya’an, Sichuan officially launched a curated set of summer hanfu travel photography routes, inviting visitors to step into flowing traditional garments and capture ethereal portraits amid mist-shrouded tea terraces, ancient forests, and mountain cloud seas. The initiative spotlights three distinctive locations — each offering a dramatically different visual aesthetic — and pairs every scene with specific hanfu styling recommendations drawn from China’s rich sartorial heritage.
Location One: A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains Tea Field
The crown jewel of the new route is the A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains tea field, a landscape deliberately designed to evoke the iconic blue-green palette of Wang Ximeng’s celebrated Northern Song Dynasty scroll painting of the same name. Here, layer upon layer of tea terraces roll endlessly toward the horizon, cloaked in a fine veil of drifting mist. The visual effect is breathtaking — an expanse of jade and celadon that seems lifted directly from a classical ink-and-color masterpiece.
Photographers recommend this site as the top-priority shooting location for hanfu portraiture. The layered tea rows create natural leading lines and depth, while the soft mist diffuses sunlight into a gentle, painterly quality ideal for portrait work. For styling, the guide suggests pairing an elegant beizi, the signature Song Dynasty open-front jacket, with a light, flowing baidie skirt in subdued pastel tones. The combination mirrors the refined, understated elegance of Song-era literati aesthetics and harmonizes beautifully with the tea field’s blue-green surroundings.
Location Two: Mengding Mountain — The Birthplace of Tea Culture
The second destination, Mengding Mountain, carries deep historical resonance as the recognized world origin of tea cultivation. Ancient trees rise through persistent mountain mist, while winding stone paths cut through pine forests that seem to have stood for centuries. The mountain’s combination of weathered stone steps, drifting cloud seas, and dark conifer groves creates an atmosphere of profound antiquity — a setting that naturally evokes the refined spirit of classical Chinese landscape poetry.
For Mengding Mountain, the styling recommendation shifts toward more formal silhouettes: a standing-collar aoqun, or alternatively, the dramatic mamianqun horse-face skirt, which catches the mountain breeze with its distinctive pleated panels. These more structured garments complement the mountain’s solemn, timeworn grandeur and photograph with striking presence against backdrops of ancient trees and swirling mist.
Location Three: Niunianping — The Ecological Tea Sea
Niunianping offers yet another visual register. This sprawling 10,000-mu ecological tea sea unfolds across terraced hillsides threaded with suspended walkways that seem to float above the tea canopy. The atmosphere here is bright, open, and energetic — perfect for capturing a livelier, more spontaneous hanfu look. At the heart of the area lies Haitang Village, officially rated as a “China Beautiful Leisure Village,” where crimson walls adorned with crabapple blossom murals provide a vibrant counterpoint to the sea of green tea leaves.
Niunianping is the recommended pick for photographers seeking an upbeat, breezy visual mood — think flowing sleeves caught by a warm summer breeze against a backdrop of seemingly infinite tea terraces under wide-open skies.
Photography Tips
The Mingshan tourism authority offers several practical notes for visitors planning their hanfu photoshoots. Daytime ultraviolet levels in the tea-growing highlands are notably strong, so early morning and late afternoon sessions are strongly advised — these golden-hour windows also deliver the most flattering natural light for portrait photography. Mengding Mountain nights remain cool even in midsummer, so packing a light jacket is essential for those planning dusk or dawn shoots at higher elevations.
In terms of travel planning, the routes are organized around two distinct trip styles. The combination of A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains and Mengding Mountain suits study tours, family outings, and nature enthusiasts who want to combine cultural exploration with landscape photography. Niunianping, by contrast, is better suited for leisure vacations, artistic travel, and slow-paced family getaways — ideal for those who want to linger, relax, and shoot at an unhurried pace.
A Growing Hanfu Tourism Landscape
Mingshan’s summer hanfu photography initiative reflects a broader nationwide trend: destinations across China are increasingly curating heritage-costume travel experiences that pair traditional dress with distinctive local scenery. What sets the Mingshan routes apart is the deliberate aesthetic coherence — each location is matched not just to a photographic style but to a specific historical garment vocabulary, allowing visitors to inhabit different chapters of China’s clothing heritage against backdrops that genuinely amplify their beauty. For hanfu enthusiasts and travel photographers alike, the tea mountains of Mingshan offer a rare convergence of natural splendor, cultural depth, and visual storytelling potential.