The Beauty of the Central Highlands

March in the Central Highlands is the season of coffee blossoms, a characteristic industrial crop well-suited to the red basalt soil. In the Central Highlands, the Buon Ma Thuot coffee variety is not only famous domestically but also renowned far and wide. The intoxicating essence of coffee is captured in the song "A Cup of Ban Me Coffee" by musician Nguyen Cuong. And in poetry, for Xuan Dieu – a poet of love – the color of coffee blossoms evokes an overwhelming sense of emotion:

The coffee smells so good, my dear!

The flower is in the same style as jasmine.

Ivory white, translucent like jade, beautiful and radiant.

Like your smile, I can still hear it somewhere.

The time when coffee blossoms are in full bloom is also when the Central Highlands are bustling with the vibrant sounds of gongs and drums during early spring festivals such as the famous Elephant Racing Festival and the Central Highlands Spring Festival… There, alongside the pristine white coffee blossoms, are the graceful Ede girls in their rich indigo-colored brocade costumes. Few people know the meticulous craftsmanship behind each dress, blouse, and piece of jewelry worn by Central Highlands women during these early spring festivals.

Each outfit is like a work of art, where the region's distinctive hand-weaving techniques create a unique character alongside the masterpiece of color coordination and pattern composition. The waistbands of Central Highlands women's skirts are often adorned with beaded rings and brass bells, creating a pleasant sound when they move. There are two types of skirts: open and closed. An open skirt is a single piece of fabric wrapped around the body. A closed skirt has two edges sewn together to form a tube. During the Coffee Festival, the streets of Buon Ma Thuot resound with the rhythm of gongs and drums, and Central Highlands girls in traditional costumes, holding coffee blossoms, dance the xoang dance while walking on stilts. They are like beautiful H'Bia and Bing girls stepping out of fairy tales and epics – the long poems of the Ede and M'Nong people – bringing vibrant colors to the Central Highlands landscape.

Flowers and people seem inseparable entities that create the beauty of the land. When spring arrives, amidst the green of the leaves and the brown of the earth, a pure, sweet, and passionate white of coffee blossoms emerges. During the flowering season, the white blanket stretches endlessly – white in the gardens, white on the hillsides, white along the roadsides; everywhere, the land and sky are covered in a vast expanse of blossoms. The buds are small and delicate, but when they bloom, they form large, spreading clusters. Each leaf axil produces a cluster, each branch densely packed with blossoms, resembling fluffy white cotton balls on the coffee plants. These flowers shimmer in the highland sun, possessing both simplicity and a touch of nobility. For each flowering season brings the people of the Central Highlands joyful excitement, overflowing hope, and promises of a prosperous and happy life.

Heritage Magazine