Ancient tea garden in the place of 'First famous tea'

The ancient tea garden of Mr. Pham Van Nhat's family, Lam Son hamlet, Tan Cuong commune, is about 100 years old.

Lost in a 100 year old tea garden

In my mind, the ancient tea garden would have trees taller than a person, like the tea trees I saw in the Tan Cuong Spring Tea Festival. But no, when we arrived at the ancient tea garden of Mr. Nhat's family in Lam Son hamlet, we saw tea trees blooming with young buds, not much different from the tea gardens of LDP1, Kim Tuyen, and Phuc Van Tien.

Only when looking down at the base of the tree, we can see the difference. It is a large tree trunk, each tree has a very wide canopy, looking like giant mushrooms. Mr. Nhat shared: If these ancient tea trees were left to grow naturally, each tree could be 4 to 5m high and could not be exploited. However, to "rejuvenate" the trees, helping them to harvest, every year I have to cut them down and shape the canopy of the tea garden once.

Mr. Nhat is a descendant - grandson of Mr. Pham Van Phuc, born in 1894 and Mrs. Tran Thi Thom, born in 1902 - who followed Mr. Doi Nam to grow tea in Tan Cuong land in 1920.

According to Mr. Nhat, this ancient tea garden was previously managed by a cooperative. In 1987, the tea garden was handed over to his family for management. Later, when he started a family (more than 22 years ago), his parents divided over 6,000 square meters of tea for him and his wife, of which more than half was a perennial tea garden.

Telling us with regret, Mr. Nhat said that because he did not have the strength to do it, in 2000, his family destroyed more than 1 sao of ancient tea. He said that ancient tea is a midland tea variety, grown from seeds so it has a strong vitality over time. This tea variety also has many advantages such as the ability to withstand cold, heat, drought and good resistance to pests and diseases. Moreover, the roots of midland tea grow deep in the ground so it can prevent soil erosion.

However, he has to spend a lot of time and effort to take care of this perennial tea area. Not only does it require meticulousness from weeding and cleaning the garden, but because there are many empty spaces in the garden (the rows of midland tea are planted farther apart than those of hybrid tea), the frequency of watering the tea must be "thicker", requiring more effort.

In return for the effort, midland tea products are of much higher quality. For many tea connoisseurs, the flavor of midland tea is very different from hybrid tea varieties. In addition to the aroma, rich taste, sweetness on the tip of the tongue, astringency in the throat, and shimmering green tea water, midland tea also has a characteristic green rice flavor.

This is also the reason why Mr. Nhat invested in this ancient tea garden. He said: Every year, I only harvest over 200 kg of dry tea buds from the tea garden, but the selling price is quite high (from 700,000 VND to over 1 million VND/kg of dry tea buds). In particular, the ancient tea products are creating prestige and brand for my family.

Preserving beautiful culture in tea region

Although the productivity is not high, the ancient tea products of Mr. Pham Van Nhat's family have a higher selling price than other types of tea.

In fact, Mr. Nhat’s family’s old tea garden does not yield high yields and requires much more meticulous care. Therefore, we wonder why Mr. Nhat does not follow the majority and destroy this century-old tea garden to plant hybrid tea varieties with higher yields and productivity like many households in the area.

Explaining these questions, Mr. Nhat did not hide: There was a time when my wife and I wanted to destroy the old tea area to replace it with new tea varieties. However, with the propaganda and encouragement from the authorities, we understood more about the significance of the old tea garden and were determined to keep it. Now, I see that my decision was completely correct when in the whole Tan Cuong tea area, there is only the oldest tea garden of my family.

Talking to us, Mr. Nhat's eyes lit up with joy and hope. For more than 20 years as the owner of this ancient tea garden, Mr. Nhat has welcomed many groups of visitors from inside and outside the province.

When coming here, visitors can not only admire the eye-catching space of the tea garden located on the poetic riverbank, but also enjoy the unique specialty tea, imbued with the culture of Tan Cuong tea region. Especially when the owner of the tea garden is spending a lot of effort to build high-class tea products.

Mr. Nhat said: In the past, because I did not have a proper understanding of the value of the ancient tea garden, I only exploited it in a "natural" way, not knowing how to invest in the right direction. However, for about 5 years now, the care and exploitation have been carried out systematically.

Each year, my husband and I only harvest about 5 or 6 batches and let the tea trees “rest” for 2 months (equivalent to 2 batches). This moderate harvesting helps the tea garden develop steadily, produce even buds and create a beautiful space all year round. We also process a variety of tea products such as lotus-scented ancient tea, tea buds, and shrimp tea...

In the process of bringing ancient tea products to the market, Mr. Nhat is still facing many difficulties because not many customers know about his family's products. This is the reason why he is still trying every day to build this unique tea brand. Along with taking care of and cultivating tea in an organic way to create safe products, Mr. Nhat is actively promoting the products through social networking platforms such as Zalo, Facebook, etc.

According to Mr. Nhat, with its beautiful location, in the future, his family's ancient tea garden can become an ideal eco -tourism and check-in destination for tourists. Therefore, he and his wife are currently exploiting and building a brand for ancient tea products while investing in beautifying the garden.

However, in order to make the goal of developing the ancient tea garden into an eco-tourism area a reality, Mr. Nhat hopes that the relevant authorities will pay attention, have policies to support funding as well as create land funds to open a road to the ancient tea garden for convenient travel.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/xa-hoi/202507/vuon-che-co-o-noide-nhat-danh-tra-1d51215/