Vietnamese Tea

The Vietnamese are in love with this thing called tea. They drink it everywhere and at any time: at formal meetings, after meals, at weddings and funerals. They place it on altars as an offering to their ancestors. But tea drinking is not a recent trend in Viet Nam. It has an ancient history, though it remains as important to the Vietnamese today as it was in the past.

Tea is scientifically known as camellia sinensis. This evergreen plant, with its small white blossoms, is native to the forests of northern Viet Nam, northern India, northern Burma and southern China. Today, it is harvested in over 30 countries around the world. These regions form a band around the earth within 30 degrees latitude of the equator and are as diverse as Argentina, China, Papua New Guinea and Turkey.

The tea plant is extremely versatile and hardy. It is known to grow, albeit slowly, at 3,000 meters in the foothills of the Himalayas. It can survive four months of snow in Turkey, and tolerate the northern latitudes of England (though there it loses its leaves every win-ter). Commercial cultivation, however, is limited to those areas in which the climate makes tea production financially viable.

The final flavor, texture, color and fragrance of tea varies according to climate, altitude, type of bush, and methods of processing and blending. As a result, no two teas are exactly the same, even if they are from the same area or plantation. Generally, tea prospers with a combination of sunshine, warmth and good levels of rainfall, all of which Viet Nam enjoys in abundance. Different varieties flourish under different conditions, but certain conditions are generally better for tea cultivation than others. Tea seems to grow  best at  around 25 degrees Celsius,  but has difficulties when  the temperature is below 13 degrees.The   amount of annual rainfall necessary for growing tea is between 1,050 and  2,000  millimeters. While a fairly consistent temperature is preferable, some believe that the greater  disparity between day and night time temperatures found in the mountains produces a more aromatic tea. Regardless, between 200 and 250 hours of sunlight are needed  per month for optimal cultivation. The tea bush is mostly a highland, or at least midland, crop, which grows best between 600 and 2,000 meters above sea level. Some believe that the higher the elevation, the milder and more fragrant the tea, while tea grown at lower elevations is said to have a heavier and stronger taste. These differences, however, may have more to do with the varieties of tea grown at the various elevations than the elevation itself. It has also been said that a lighter, sandier soil tends to produce a more fragrant tea. While all of this is difficult to verify, it is fairly clear that tea grows best in soil with a pH level of 5.

In Viet Nam wild tea plants have been known to reach heights of nearly 15 meters and boast diameters of two meters. It is said that in earlier times, monkeys were used to collect tea leave from inaccessibleplaces. Sometimes these monkeys were specifically trained for the task. Alternately, monkeys encountered frolicking among tea trees were taunted with stones until they became angered into breaking off tea branches, and throwing them down at their delighted tormentors.

Today, the trees are usually pruned into bushes about one meter high, the ideal picking level to make the leaves accessible. Pruning generally occurs in the winter months after the last harvest. In many places, tea is grown on estates averaging 500 hectares, with about 1 5,000 bushes per hectare. Each hectare produces about vie tons of leaves per year depending on the conditions. The bushes are usually planted on hillsides in rows horizontal to the slope. In Viet Nam, tea bushes grow almost entirely on hillsides to allow other crops, primarily rice, to be grown in the low lands. Each bush produces around 125 grams of dried tea per year, which is equivalent to about 40 tea bags. A tea bush has a life span of 40 to 70 years, and begins to produce tea after the first five years of its life. Such longevity is of value in tropical or semitropical countries where rates of soil erosion are high, because the bushes provide stable and extensive ground cover, reduce evaporation, and stabilize the nutrients in the soil.

Environmentally, tea helps maintain the quality of the land for many years. As with all crops, tea has to be managed and research continues into improving productivity, quality and resistance to disease.