Heritage Tea Mountain of Red Dzao Tribe

Lung Tao is a colorful village with beautiful natural scenery at the foot of Tay Con Linh mountain (known as the roof of Northeast Vietnam). Here you can find many aspects of the unique traditional culture of the Red Yao people. The ancestral tea trees have been recognised as heritage trees of Vietnam, their past woven into the tribe’s equally rich history of customs and traditions for thousands of years.

AVOIDING FAKE PUERH TEA CAKE

Fake Puerh Tea: 3 Ways to Avoid Common Scams 

Real or Fake? The Puerh Tea Buyers Dilemma 

There is a lot of discussion of authenticity in the Puerh tea community. Newcomers to Puerh tea hear the word “fake” bantered around and become frightened before even owning a Puerh tea cake. “Is my tea real or fake?!” they wonder, afraid of dipping a toe into the water. This article will help shed some light on what real and fake mean in the context of Puerh tea and how to ensure that you are happy with your tea regardless of its authenticity.

Real Puerh Brands and Brand Name Puerh Teas

The Situation: Large Puerh tea brands have factories that produce thousands upon thousands of metric tons of tea. Companies like Dayi or Xiaguan have billboards in airports and panels of the sides of buses. Not to mention very costly commercials on television. This immense marketing budget is part of their business model, which is brand based and depends on large volume with big mark ups. Due to their popularity and mass-market advertising, many smaller producers fake their products in an attempt to earn money from the same big mark-up without having to spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns. The result is a market flooded with fake brand name teas.

Bánh Chà - Bing Cha or Puerh Tea cakes

Bánh Chà ( Bing Cha or Puerh Tea cake) 

Bánh Chà ( Bing Cha or Puerh Tea cake) is made from a special variety of fermented and aged dark tea that is produced by hill tribes around Tay Con Linh mountain range in the north Vietnam

Fermentation is a form of tea production in which the tea leaves are dried, rolled and then undergo microbial fermentation and oxidation. This produces a traditional local specialty, Trà Ông Lam or Bánh Chà, known in China as 'Pu-erh tea').

The raw material for our Organic Shan Tuyet tea cakes is snow tea grown by Yao people on Tay Con Linh mountain. Our tea cakes are made using moderate fermentation and traditional processing, and we are proud of the indigenous heritage of our tea.

GREAT TEA FROM ANCESTOR TREES

Some of the best tea production areas in Vietnam are found in Hà Giang Province 

Ha Giang Province stretches from the mountain range of West Con Linh to the Chinese border. It contains some of the most ancient and precious Shan Tuyet tea trees on earth. Tragically, the largest plantation tea trees have been cut down, however, the remaining ancient trees can still be 1000 to 3000 years old.

Cao Bo village has a total of nearly 1,000 ha of ancient Shan Tuyet Tea tree.  The leaves from these trees are used to produce the famous Trà ông lam (in vietnamese) or pu-erh tea (in chinese). Since 2011, Cao Bo tea products have been recognised as organic products by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). 

"I have travelled across 120 countries which have tea trees in the world but I’ve not seen anywhere there are perennial tea trees like Shan Tuyet tea. Whether this is the place where the tea tree came from--the tea here is unique. In the bowl of green tea there are all the 18 tastes of the top tea types in the world," Academic of the USSR Academy of Sciences – Mr. MK Djemukhatze, writing in the visitor’s book of Suoi Giang in 1960. 

Mr Djemukhatze researched tea plants of Northern Vietnam and published a book about them in 1976. The results of this research confirmed that the tea trees in the Ha Giang Province are original ancestor trees. The recognition of their status as an important element of the natural heritage of Vietnam contributes to the protection of this valuable genetic resource. 

TRÀ ỐNG LAM ( in VIETNAMESE) or PU-ERH TEA (in CHINESE) 

The tea is made from the leaves and stems of the Shan Tuyet tree. This is the same tree that is used for making green, oolong, and black teas. The various teas are made by using different processes: green tea is not fermented, oolong tea is partially fermented, black tea is fully fermented, and Pu-erh tea is post-fermented. This means the processing of Pu-erh tea includes both fermentation and prolonged storage, or “aging,”, in high humidity conditions. Pu-erh tea that is aged for a longer period of time tastes better. Pu-erh tea is valued for its medicinal properties and drinking it is said to improve mental alertness and reduce high cholesterol.

VIET TEA IN THE VIETNAM CULTURAL HERITAGE

First time in this year, the State officially consider the day of November,23 evey year the Vietnam Cultural heritage.....