Most tea is sold on adjectives. What really decides whether a cup comes out green and sweet is what goes into the soil, when the leaf is picked, and how fast it reaches the pan. Here is how ours is made.
From leaf to cup
Our two growing areas sit in the valleys on the eastern side of the Tam Dao range, in Dai Tu and La Bang, ringed by Nui Coc Lake. Member households plant and tend every bush under the cooperative’s 6 Không production commitment, with the patience a tea garden asks for.
The picked leaf is processed at TRAVINA’s own factory in Thai Nguyen, which meets Vietnamese food safety (ATTP) and VietGAP standards, in a modern closed process that protects the leaf’s natural character from pan to pack.
From the midland (Trung Du) variety and high-yield hybrid tea, TRAVINA makes tea that is clean, with a deep traditional flavour — the taste Thai Nguyen is known for.
TRAVINA is a working cooperative in Dai Tu, Thai Nguyen, open to visitors all year. Pick the leaf yourself, stand beside the pan while the tea is fired, then brew what you have just made and drink it where it was grown.
Ninety member households. 40.5 hectares. An hour and a half from Hanoi airport.
Plan your visit
Five peer-reviewed studies on Vietnamese tea: wide variation in caffeine and catechins, green and purple midland tea, wild versus cultivated teas, and high genetic diversity in Shan trees. Chemistry and genetics only.
Details
In 2022 Vietnam sold about 48,000 tonnes of tea at home for about 325 million USD and exported 146,000 tonnes for 237 million USD. How a quarter of the volume earns more, and what it means for importers.
Details
Vietnamese tea exports average about 1.7 USD/kg, 55–65% of the world average, while the same tea retails for 7–20 USD/kg at home. Five reasons for the gap and what is closing it.
Details
Plantations from 1884, research stations in 1917–1918, Indochina’s first tea factory in 1925, Paris buyers and the Bao Loc black tea industry: how the colonial period shaped Vietnam’s tea trade.
Details
Strong green tea in small cups for every guest, iced tea on the pavement, fresh tea in summer, and tea on the altar at Tet and at engagements: a short guide to how Vietnam drinks tea.
Details
More than 170 cultivars, but most gardens use a handful: old midland and Shan tea, improved cultivars from the Phu Ho institute such as LDP1, LDP2 and PH8, and introduced cultivars such as Kim Tuyen.
Details
Four verified tea GIs: Shan tuyet Moc Chau (2010), a Thai Nguyen green tea area (2017), Shan tuyet Ha Giang (2018) and Phinh Ho Shan tea (2021). What a GI means on a label, and how it differs from a
Details
In 1918 a research station opened at Phu Ho to find the best tea varieties for northern Vietnam; in 1925 Indochina’s first tea factory followed. How that station became the institute behind today’s cultivars.
Details
