Hawk tea is a kind of refreshing and folk tea drink with a long drinking history in China. The primary plants used for making Hawk-tea are mainly five trees from Lauraceae family, including Litsea coreana var. lanuginosa, Machilus rehderi, Machilus Chuanchienensis, Actinodaphne cupularis, and Lindera fragrans. Whereas their studies on genetics and molecular biology remain preliminary with less supports on the exploration and utilization of these germplasm resources, which restricts the development of the Hawk-tea industry. In this study, flow cytometry and K-mer frequency analysis were performed to estimate the genome size and genomic characteristics of the five tea-like species. In flow cytometry the genomes of tomato (929 Mb) and rice (430 Mb) were used as internal control, and K-mer frequency analysis was performed using Illumina sequencing data (depth above 50X). The main results are as follows: (1) By flow cytometry, the genome size of L. coreana var. lanuginosa was 1,150.56 ± 20.47 Mb, M. rehderi was 999.83 ± 25.02 Mb, M. Chuanchienensis was 1,471.99 ± 16.31 Mb, A. cupularis was 1,123.42 ± 10.24 Mb, and t L. fragrans was 1,350.06 ± 37.28 Mb; (2) By K-mer frequency analysis, the genome size of L. coreana var. lanuginosa was 1025.91 Mb, with a heterozygosity rate of 1.29% and repetition rate of 49.98%; the genome size of M. rehderi was 1024.79 Mb, with a heterozygosity rate of 1.41% and repetition rate of 42.51%; the genome size of M. Chuanchienensis was 1234.90 Mb, with a heterozygosity rate of 1.23% and repetition rate of 50.86%; the genome size of A. cupularis was 1014.27 Mb, with a heterozygosity rate of 1.23% and repetition rate of 50.86%; the genome size of L. fragrans was 1258.00 Mb, with a heterozygosity rate of 0.74% and repetition rate of 54.89%. (3) Except for L. fragrans, four hawk-tea trees showed high heterozygous genome with medium repetitive elements. The results of this study can provide information for the genome sequencing of individual species or pan-genome research projects.