Ladders improve safety and efficiency for Shan Tuyet tea harvesters

Harvesting premium tea buds high in the mountains

It carried delicate floral notes intertwined with the scent of mountain mist and the sun-drenched air of the highlands, leaving a remarkably deep and lingering sweetness on the palate. Seeing how much I enjoyed it, Thao Thi My placed a bag of white tea in my hands and said, "This is a gift for you. It's the first batch of white tea from the 2026 spring harvest. I hope you'll remember Suoi Khang's Shan Tuyet tea whenever you drink it."

Those downy tea buds, covered in a silvery layer of fine hairs, were the result of an entire day's climb through the mountains, followed by careful withering indoors and gentle sun-drying outside. It was impossible not to be moved by such heartfelt generosity.

The ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees typically have trunks measuring 70-80 centimeters in circumference and stand 15-20 meters tall. Yet My told me that deep in the forest, after about a three-hour hike, there are trees so massive that it takes two people with outstretched arms to encircle their trunks.

Thao Thi Chia, a petite Hmong woman carrying a large woven basket on her back, slowly climbed a makeshift platform built from wooden planks and tree branches lashed to the trunk of an ancient Shan Tuyet tea tree. Standing below, I raised my camera as high as I could, but the mist made it impossible to focus on her face. All I could make out was her faint silhouette disappearing into the fog.

Climbing the tallest tea trees is usually men's work, while women harvest from smaller, lower trees. But with Chia's husband away clearing cardamom fields that day, she had no choice but to make the climb herself.

After spending an entire morning weaving through the forest and scrambling up trees like a monkey, she could harvest 3-4 kilograms of tea, including both premium single-bud tea and one-bud-two-leaf shoots, earning VND 300,000-400,000. She returns to the mountains every three or four days, allowing enough time for the next flush of buds to emerge. The tea harvest season runs from March to November, with the peak harvest occurring between March and August.

Each year, the young couple earns around VND 15-20 million from tea. They supplement that income with earnings from cardamom cultivation and forest patrol work, bringing in a few million dong more. While the income is modest, it is enough to help keep her husband away from the endless rounds of homemade corn liquor and the lure of drug addiction that have trapped some of the village's young men.

A vision beyond the mountains

Thao Thi My is originally from the former Huy Thuong Commune. As a child, she excelled in school and dreamed of becoming a teacher. But while she was in the fifth grade, she returned home for the Lunar New Year, where her mother gently urged her to quit school.

"You're a girl. You don't need to study anymore. Even if you continue, you'll get married in a few years, and your parents won't benefit from your education. Stay home, help us work the fields, then get married."

My shook her head repeatedly, pleading to continue her education. Seeing her determination, her mother broke into tears.

"Your older sister is already married. I have heart disease and don't know how much longer I'll live. If you leave for school, your father will have to work the fields alone."

Hearing those words, My cried as well. She hung her schoolbag on the wall and gave up the familiar trail that led from her home to school, a two-hour walk across four mountains.

Her parents also insisted that any man who married their daughter must move into their household. Many young men came to court her but quietly walked away after hearing the condition. It was not until she turned 18 that a young man from Suoi Khang Village, in present-day Suoi To Commune, agreed to become a live-in son-in-law. He is now her husband.

In the end, however, it was he who persuaded My to move to his hometown instead. The couple settled into a wooden house perched near the summit of a mountain at an elevation of about 1,600 meters. Scattered across the surrounding forests stood ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees, many of them long forgotten or cut down by local residents to clear land for cultivation.

To earn some extra income, My opened a small grocery shop in the village. One day, a visitor from Ta Xua Commune asked whether the area had any Shan Tuyet tea. She replied that she had never heard the name and only knew of a wild tea that the Hmong called xua di. The visitor suggested that the next time she encountered the trees in the forest, she should take photos and send them via Zalo. After seeing the images, he confirmed that they were indeed ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees.

Curious, My picked a small batch of leaves and brought them to Ta Xua, where local tea makers processed them for tasting. Everyone praised the tea's rich aroma and agreed to buy it. From then on, she and her husband began purchasing fresh tea leaves from villagers for VND 25,000 per kilogram before transporting them by motorbike over dozens of kilometers of rugged mountain roads to Phu Yen Town, then through Bac Yen Town and up to Ta Xua, where they sold the leaves for VND 40,000 per kilogram.

Demand, however, was unpredictable. On some days, villagers harvested as much as 100 kilograms of fresh leaves, but the tea workshop in Ta Xua would purchase only 40-50 kilograms. Later, My heard of another processor in Bac Yen that was willing to buy unlimited quantities. That proved to be true, but only on sunny days. Whenever the weather turned foggy, the workshop refused to accept any tea.

Realizing they needed greater control over their business, My and her husband decided to process the tea themselves. After learning the basics of green tea production, they purchased a hand-operated, wood-fired drying machine in 2020. Fresh leaves were first heated for about 10 minutes to wilt, then rolled by hand before being returned to the dryer until they reached roughly 80% dryness. After cooling, the tea was dried once more until fully finished.

Processing around 50 kilograms of fresh tea buds required six to seven continuous hours of work without stopping to eat or rest, as any delay could cause the leaves to deteriorate and compromise the final product's quality.

In addition to selling tea directly, My taught herself how to market her products on Facebook. At first, customers ordered only small quantities to try, but once they experienced the quality, many returned with larger orders.

While she was producing white and green tea, a woman from Ho Chi Minh City who had heard about her work traveled to the mountains to teach her to make black tea through natural fermentation. The tea leaves are fermented for 24 hours before being sun-dried on clear days or finished in a drying oven when the weather is too misty.

According to preliminary estimates, the forests surrounding Suoi Khang Village in Suoi To Commune are home to more than 600 ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees. Some are so massive that it takes two people to encircle their trunks, and their ages are estimated to range from several hundred to more than a thousand years. Standing 10-20 meters tall, these trees are difficult to harvest. Concerned that villagers might cut branches and damage the trees to reach the leaves, My and her husband built ladders to make harvesting safer and help preserve the ancient tea trees.

Rather than relying solely on these wild trees, which are communally owned and difficult to harvest, the couple has spent the past three years establishing a three-hectare Shan Tuyet tea plantation of their own. They have also encouraged four neighboring households to plant an additional four hectares, laying the groundwork for a more sustainable local tea industry.

$ 1 = VND 26,460 - Source: Vietcombank.