Ngong Ping Tea Garden
Historic tea garden on Lantau, now including restoration of surviving bushes and renewed small-scale harvesting. This is distinct from reopening the former commercial plantation.
- Level
- Sub-area
- Within
- Hong Kong
At a glance#
Where it lies#
Tea places nearby, plotted by their coordinates. Only physical positions are shown, no boundaries.
Altitude#
Garden elevations here and in neighbouring places, as sourced.
People#
- Brook Bernacchi 贝纳祺
- Founder (QC 1960; Urban Councillor 1952–1995 in three spells).
Market#
- Output
- Small-scale cultivation and restoration harvests are documented; no verified territory-wide annual production figure is available here.
History#
- 1948Bernacchi settles on Lantau (garden founded in the 1940s per zh Wikipedia).
- 1995Second-generation operator 陳奐池 takes over.
- 1996Bernacchi dies.
- 2006Ngong Ping 360 opens; the garden's business declines.
- 2013An earlier secondary account dates the former garden operation’s closure to 2013; this is separate from the later restoration harvests.
- 2025Kadoorie Farm reports renewed Ngong Ping harvests in autumn 2024 and spring 2025 after rejuvenation of about 100 old tea bushes.
Other names and written forms 3#
- 大嶼山茶園Lantau — tea garden
- 蓮花嘜雲霧茶Lotus-brand cloud-and-mist tea'Lotus brand cloud-mist tea', the garden's best-known product.
- Lantau Tea Garden
Notes#
Barrister and Urban Councillor Brook Bernacchi (貝納祺, 1922–1996), who settled on Lantau in 1948, set up the plantation on the Ngong Ping plateau next to Po Lin Monastery, on the slope of 木魚峰 at about 450 m. He employed former prisoners, recovering addicts and homeless youths; at its height it held over 200,000 tea bushes, and its 'Lotus brand' cloud-mist tea was sold to visitors and exported. A tea restaurant served day-trippers. From 1995 it was run by 陳奐池; after the Ngong Ping 360 cable car opened (2006) and costs rose, it declined and stopped operating in 2013, with talk of reviving it for conservation and eco-tourism.
Local tea growing also continues at Kadoorie Farm. Ngong Ping restoration harvests are documented for autumn 2024 and spring 2025; this does not establish that the former commercial estate has reopened.