Pu’er Coffee

 Not long ago, I went to Qiandao Lake to enjoy the autumn scenery during the off-peak travel season. Even though it was already winter, this year Hangzhou had been unusually slow to turn cold. To me, the low season is actually the right way to experience Qiandao Lake. The trees shift through layers of color, and the lake and mountains reveal nature at its most effortless. From the moment I stepped out of the high-speed rail station, even the air felt more “health-boosting” than Hangzhou’s—haha. It’s an ideal destination for a quiet weekend escape. Whenever I travel to an unfamiliar city, one of my rituals is to seek out local coffee shops. For me, cafés are a kind of unspoken link between myself and a city. This habit has become deeply ingrained in how I travel—it’s a way of getting closer to local culture and creating a personal, irreplaceable memory of a place. That said, based on everything I could find beforehand, there was only one café in Qiandao Lake that truly felt worth...