The artisan crafting century-old raw Pu-erh

Tea finds its person

After tens of months aging in terracotta jars, nearly 100% of the Pu-erh tea crafted from Suoi To Shan Tuyet tea sprouts golden flowers like this, with some tea cakes showing fungi growing in clusters. That is precisely what built the brand of V-shan Tea Cooperative (Phu Yen District, Son La Province) owned by Mr. Ha Duc Thang. "Compressed tea cakes are abundant, but few units in Viet Nam can craft 100% Pu-erh that sprouts golden flower fungi like this because it involves raw material quality, correct enzyme kill-green, correct aging, and controlling the withering stage so that natural microorganisms inside the tea cake do not die off...

"After each year, Pu-erh tea increases in quality, with its price appreciating by about 15%. Currently, a 350-gram tea cake costs 2.8 million VND, or over 10 million VND/kg, but my most premium line reaches up to 350 million VND/kg. Pu-erh tea can be steeped dozens of times, yet the sweet, rich aftertaste in the mouth remains clearly perceptible," Mr. Thang explained.

Mr. Thang went through many professions, earning a good living until the Covid-19 pandemic struck, causing work to stall and forcing him to leave the mountains for Hanoi to make a living. While working as a sales agent for several dental clinics, he was, by a stroke of serendipity, invited for tea by an acquaintance named Pham Trung Thuc, who had been a business partner in earlier years. Back in his hometown, people usually brewed tea very strong, drinking it very bitter and astringent, even causing nausea and tea-drunkenness; thus, when trying a cup of black tea (hong tra), Mr. Thang was astonished by its beautiful liquid color, fragrance, and sweet, rich flavor.

So, leaving behind a monthly salary of 30 million VND, he decided to quit cold turkey to spend 6 months studying tea under the very man he honored as his master, Mr. Pham Trung Thuc. He texted his wife: "Please try to take care of the family for me for 6 months so I can study." After that, he turned off his phone, occasionally switching it on only to text a single sentence: "I'm still okay," before turning it off again.

Every single day of those 6 months, Thang began by washing teaware for his master, who owned thousands of Yixing Zisha teapot sets. After washing, master and disciple sat together evaluating dozens of tea varieties such as green tea, black tea, white tea, Pu-erh..., with each type categorized into many different quality grades.

Traveling abroad to seek a master

Equipped with knowledge on tea brewing, Mr. Thang was sent by his master to a reputable tea company in Hanoi to learn further about tea utensils. The deeper he delved into the tea industry, the more potential he perceived, deciding to invest in production. At that time, many units in Viet Nam were already processing Shan Tuyet tea. Basically, the fewer leaves and the older the tree, the higher the tea quality. Possessing a good raw material zone meant he had to acquire tea processing knowledge as well.

Thus, he found a way to go to Yunnan Province, China, to seek a master and learn the craft. There were many ways to make Pu-erh tea here, such as Lao Ban Zhang featuring pronounced bitterness and astringency with a long-lasting sweet aftertaste, or Yiwu featuring gentle bitterness and astringency followed by sweetness and rich creaminess. He chose Yiwu Pu-erh because most Vietnamese people do not favor the bitter, astringent taste of Lao Ban Zhang Pu-erh like the Chinese do.

Borrowing nearly 300 million VND for tuition fees, he went to Yiwu to study for 9 months, from white tea processing to Pu-erh, the slow-fermenting tea that can be preserved for hundreds of years. Upon finishing his studies, he eagerly returned to the Shan Tuyet tea area in Ta Xua Commune, Son La Province, to experiment, but failed and had to invite his master from China to find an answer. The raw material zone here was praised by the expert for being 100% wild with many ancient trunks. In Yunnan, China, there is a King Tea Tree around 1,500 years old and a Queen Tea Tree around 1,000 years old, strictly protected, with each kilogram of their tea priced up to billions of Vietnamese dong.

In Viet Nam, thousand-year-old Shan Tuyet tea trees are not rare either. After surveying Ta Xua, the expert discovered that high air humidity caused on-site processed tea quality to fall short. When Mr. Thang brought the expert to his home by the shore of Noong Bua Lake in Phu Yen Commune to rest, the expert took out instruments to measure and found it possessed all the optimal indicators to establish a tea processing workshop, such as humidity, temperature, and sunshine hours...

Pu-erh has 2 types: raw (sheng) involves 20% kill-green while leaving 80% for slow fermentation, whereas ripe (shou) involves 80% kill-green while leaving 20% for slow fermentation. After 8 to 10 months of fermenting in terracotta jars, the tea is taken out to be compressed into cakes. Seeing him process Ta Xua Shan Tuyet tea at home like that, some people from Suoi To came down to meet him, saying: "We have an abundance of this tea in our area, but always have to haul it up to Ta Xua to sell; if you want to buy, come on up."

Unlike Be Village in Ta Xua with concrete roads leading straight to the tea roots, the Suoi To tea region consisted entirely of dirt trails snaking through forests, so during that survey trip, Mr. Thang suffered over 40 leech bites from head to toe, bleeding profusely. But that bloodshed was entirely worthwhile.

"Why do I evaluate Suoi To as having ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees thousands of years old that few regions possess? It is because in Be Village of Ta Xua Commune near Suoi To, among 200 trees recognized as a Viet Nam Heritage Tree complex, the oldest trunk is 285 years old. Using reference methods based on trunk diameter, lower trunk height, and overall tree height, the tea trees in Suoi To are many times larger than those in Be Village, estimated to be a thousand years old. To know precisely, we will invite scientists over in the near future," Mr. Thang shared.

Mr. Thang purchases Suoi To Shan Tuyet tea to produce 16 tea varieties, the most premium of which is Pu-erh crafted from trees over 200, 300, to 500 years old, intended to age loosely in terracotta jars for 10 years before being pressed into cakes. There are hundreds of large and small jars arranged in rows inside Mr. Thang's house, labeled with the age of each tea tree. I opened a jar lid, and a fragrant aroma resembling honey and ripe fruits wafted through several rooms.

Normally, the workshop's Pu-erh tea cakes weigh 350 grams, but some cakes produced for display purposes weigh up to 18kg with a diameter of 86cm. Mr. Thang recalled that although his Suoi To tea picking team video-records every harvest on hundred-year-old trees, meticulous customers still insist on trekking up mountains for hours to witness the harvest firsthand, then return to the workshop, lay out mattresses to sleep on the spot to watch over the processing and jar-sealing stages before carrying them home for storage.

Last year, Thang's V-shan Tea Cooperative gained two additional OCOP products: Phu Hoa Green Tea and Phu Hoa White Tea. He also established Suoi To Tea Investment and Production-Trading Cooperative to partner with his old cooperative to standardize inputs and build a high-tech tea production area right in the homeland of Shan Tuyet tea.

Like fine wine, the longer Pu-erh tea is aged, the more delicious and precious it becomes, especially varieties containing golden flowers. In China, certain kilograms of Pu-erh tea auctioned off reach prices converted to billions of Vietnamese dong.

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