Sweetness supersedes and quickly removes any bitterness from the tea, aspecialty from the mountainous province of Yen Bai in northern Vietnam,that Nguyen Thanh Hai sips.
"It's completely perfect as arefreshing treat on a summer morning," the middle-aged woman said, asshe fastened her eyes on little dried, curled buds coated in a thinwhitish cover which seemed to sparkle under the early sun.
Haiexpressed much delight over the "Thanh you" gift she has received from afriend – a crystalline glass jar containing around 100g of shantuyettea marked ‘a Suoi Giang – Yen Bai specialty'.
Located around1,200 to 2,200m above sea level, Suoi Giang commune in Van Chan districtenjoys a cool climate all year round. The favourable geography, terrainand weather conditions have been the key to the development of teatrees which produce the well-known shantuyet variety.
The latestfigures show that Suoi Giang is home to 393 hectares of land planted totea, three-fourths of them with ancient roots.
In the 1960s, DrM. Djemmukhatze of the Soviet Union Academy of Sciences visited SuoiGiang and concluded that its tea had the most unique flavor. At thattime, the commune had nearly 40,000 ancient tea trees aged from 200 to300 years.
"I've been to 120 countries which grow tea in theworld but found no other places that have perennial plants like those inSuoi Giang. The tea here is unique. All the 18 flavours of the globaltea varieties can be found in a single bowl of green tea," he wrote in anotebook kept at the local People's Committee.
According tolocal people, mostly from the H'Mong ethnic group, the fresh buds stillretain their natural scent, plumpness, sheen and an outer layer ofwhitish fuzz after these are manually processed, so they are calledshantuyet.
For ages, they have viewed the ancient tea as a rare,valuable, and healthy herb, with a liquid as yellow as forest honeyinstead of green, like other tea brands. The smooth blend of all of itselements makes the brew one of the finest natural drinks in the country.
Thelate poet Xuan Dieu even composed poems describing the lingeringsweetness of Suoi Giang tea on the tip of one's tongue as a long-lastinglove between a man and a woman.
According to Nguyen Dinh, aresearcher of tea culture, Suoi Giang still holds a tea-worshippingceremony at the outset of the first tea crop of the year.
"Onlythe H'Mong people in Suoi Giang possess such a unique cultural trait inVietnam. They do make offerings to local deities to win their supportfor the coming bumper harvests," Dinh said.
"Local people preparea cock, two bottles of homemade rice wine and some bamboo and paperstuff and place them on an altar set up under the foot of the oldest teatree, aged more than 300 years," Dinh recalled. "A wizard, normally aprestigious person in the community, is placed in charge of theworshipping rituals."
"The practice serves as a perfectconnection between generations of people in Suoi Giang who have lived onthe tea. It is also a fine cultural beauty, likely demonstrating thatreaching areas of century-old tea trees is needed to understand a wholecultural region," Dinh added.
"People drink the tea, not justbecause of its fine buds, as white as snow, with its yellowish brew andfragrant and sweet taste, but because of the quintessence of thenorthern sky and earth, as well as cultural features of the H'Mongpeople," said Pham Vu Khanh who has been in the business for years.
"Eachkilo of shantuyet costs about 10 times more than the popular ThaiNguyen tea varieties, but the number of customers remains high," Khanhsaid.
"On the average, an ancient tea tree produces between sevento eight kilos of freshly-picked tea per year while a kilo of dried tearequires five kilos of freshly-picked tea. That's why shantuyet tea is aprecious treasure," he added.
Nguyen Huu Phuong who has returnedfrom a community-based tour to experience the daily tea processing workof the H'Mong people in Suoi Giang, said: "When I first heard that akilo of the shantuyet tea cost as much as 3.5 millionVND (170 USD), Ithought it was unbelievable."
"Now I think differently afterwitnessing and becoming directly involved in the tea-processing work.The price is nothing compared with the efforts the locals make toproduce the specialty tea," the Hanoian added. "The more the culturalfeatures in the tea are exploited, the higher is its value."
"TheChinese and Japanese drink as much tea as the Vietnamese," said Dinh."They have developed this habit and turned it into a cultural trait,like that of the tea ceremony in Japan, to make business and diplomacy.I'm glad that this trend is taking place in Vietnam."
Figuresshow that Vietnam has around 7,500 hectares of ancient shantuyet teatrees, mostly in the northeastern and northwestern regions. This varietyhas made a name in the provinces of Yen Bai, Son La, Ha Giang, CaoBang, Dien Bien and Hoa Binh.-VNA
"It's completely perfect as arefreshing treat on a summer morning," the middle-aged woman said, asshe fastened her eyes on little dried, curled buds coated in a thinwhitish cover which seemed to sparkle under the early sun.
Haiexpressed much delight over the "Thanh you" gift she has received from afriend – a crystalline glass jar containing around 100g of shantuyettea marked ‘a Suoi Giang – Yen Bai specialty'.
Located around1,200 to 2,200m above sea level, Suoi Giang commune in Van Chan districtenjoys a cool climate all year round. The favourable geography, terrainand weather conditions have been the key to the development of teatrees which produce the well-known shantuyet variety.
The latestfigures show that Suoi Giang is home to 393 hectares of land planted totea, three-fourths of them with ancient roots.
In the 1960s, DrM. Djemmukhatze of the Soviet Union Academy of Sciences visited SuoiGiang and concluded that its tea had the most unique flavor. At thattime, the commune had nearly 40,000 ancient tea trees aged from 200 to300 years.
"I've been to 120 countries which grow tea in theworld but found no other places that have perennial plants like those inSuoi Giang. The tea here is unique. All the 18 flavours of the globaltea varieties can be found in a single bowl of green tea," he wrote in anotebook kept at the local People's Committee.
According tolocal people, mostly from the H'Mong ethnic group, the fresh buds stillretain their natural scent, plumpness, sheen and an outer layer ofwhitish fuzz after these are manually processed, so they are calledshantuyet.
For ages, they have viewed the ancient tea as a rare,valuable, and healthy herb, with a liquid as yellow as forest honeyinstead of green, like other tea brands. The smooth blend of all of itselements makes the brew one of the finest natural drinks in the country.
Thelate poet Xuan Dieu even composed poems describing the lingeringsweetness of Suoi Giang tea on the tip of one's tongue as a long-lastinglove between a man and a woman.
According to Nguyen Dinh, aresearcher of tea culture, Suoi Giang still holds a tea-worshippingceremony at the outset of the first tea crop of the year.
"Onlythe H'Mong people in Suoi Giang possess such a unique cultural trait inVietnam. They do make offerings to local deities to win their supportfor the coming bumper harvests," Dinh said.
"Local people preparea cock, two bottles of homemade rice wine and some bamboo and paperstuff and place them on an altar set up under the foot of the oldest teatree, aged more than 300 years," Dinh recalled. "A wizard, normally aprestigious person in the community, is placed in charge of theworshipping rituals."
"The practice serves as a perfectconnection between generations of people in Suoi Giang who have lived onthe tea. It is also a fine cultural beauty, likely demonstrating thatreaching areas of century-old tea trees is needed to understand a wholecultural region," Dinh added.
"People drink the tea, not justbecause of its fine buds, as white as snow, with its yellowish brew andfragrant and sweet taste, but because of the quintessence of thenorthern sky and earth, as well as cultural features of the H'Mongpeople," said Pham Vu Khanh who has been in the business for years.
"Eachkilo of shantuyet costs about 10 times more than the popular ThaiNguyen tea varieties, but the number of customers remains high," Khanhsaid.
"On the average, an ancient tea tree produces between sevento eight kilos of freshly-picked tea per year while a kilo of dried tearequires five kilos of freshly-picked tea. That's why shantuyet tea is aprecious treasure," he added.
Nguyen Huu Phuong who has returnedfrom a community-based tour to experience the daily tea processing workof the H'Mong people in Suoi Giang, said: "When I first heard that akilo of the shantuyet tea cost as much as 3.5 millionVND (170 USD), Ithought it was unbelievable."
"Now I think differently afterwitnessing and becoming directly involved in the tea-processing work.The price is nothing compared with the efforts the locals make toproduce the specialty tea," the Hanoian added. "The more the culturalfeatures in the tea are exploited, the higher is its value."
"TheChinese and Japanese drink as much tea as the Vietnamese," said Dinh."They have developed this habit and turned it into a cultural trait,like that of the tea ceremony in Japan, to make business and diplomacy.I'm glad that this trend is taking place in Vietnam."
Figuresshow that Vietnam has around 7,500 hectares of ancient shantuyet teatrees, mostly in the northeastern and northwestern regions. This varietyhas made a name in the provinces of Yen Bai, Son La, Ha Giang, CaoBang, Dien Bien and Hoa Binh.-VNA
