Saigon / HCM Vietnam

[daidokorocha]

Ee, I tried a high mountain Vietnamese oolong last week and it wasn't quite bad. I bought myself a bag of a Vietnamese green as well. I haven't had it yet. I'll get back around to it.

[Bok]

What about pollution in teas from Vietnam? After all a lot of agent orange has been dumped on the country and even today people are still born with missing limbs and the sorts due to that…

I guess it should be fine for teas from the south, but I am not so sure about north Vietnam. Does anyone know where they mainly grow their tea?

A lot of teas make it also into Taiwan, here being sold as taiwanese so the merchant makes a good margin… From my experience I found the oolongs from Vietnam a bit too “grassy” for my taste, similar to oolongs I tried from Thailand.

[jayinhk]

I saw some people who had agent orange deformities outside saigon, but they were in their 30s and 40s. Things are fine now; pesticide is a much bigger issue. Most tea is produced up north in the mountains.

Grassy taste = chlorophyll = too much nitrogen...sounds like they're fertilizing heavily to boost yields.

I have VN oolong right here, but I'm drinking Anxi TGY instead.

[jayinhk]

Heading to Saigon again in a few hours...British citizens no longer need visas, so that $65 was spent on much nicer accommodation! Agent Orange is still very much an issue. Hopefully there isn't any in the tea! Going to stock up on Thai Nguyen green as I am quite fond of it.

[jayinhk]

Got pretty good Dalat tea at Ben Thanh and 500g of Thai Nguyen tea at Cholon, as well as some Thai Nguyen and Vietnamese TGY at Phuc Long, a chain of local tea/coffee stores. I also got something special from the people at Hatvala in Saigon, where I tried a lot of their teas over six hours. I really enjoyed their black teas, even though I prefer greens and oolongs. I was less impressed by their oolongs, but I was drinking rice wine from the far north of Vietnam and couldn't taste the oolong as well because of the wine.

I brought home Tiger Monkey green tea from Lung Phin. This is a high mountain wild green tea that is hand processed by the Hmong; pretty special stuff. The Hatvala team really go out of their way to find the rarest of teas in Vietnam. There are apparently other places to find the good stuff in Saigon, but this was the most readily accessible online and they know their stuff. Definitely worth a visit if you're in Saigon as they're very friendly and accommodating, and have a lovely tea room.

Hatvala do ship tea, but you have to e-mail them if you're curious about making a purchase. They don't have a cart on the site yet.

[painera]

I'm from Vietnam and living in Saigon. I suggest you to try Oolong tea in Le Hong Phong Street. There are many tea shops on this street. But most of owners are local and they can't speak English.
Dried lotus flower, or Lotus Oolong, especially Lotus Seed tea
hope my suggestion can help you!

[rdl]

painera,
In Hanoi I was given a tea I am sure is called Bac Thanh. Over the years I've tried to obtain more but it seems I either have the name incorrectly or most tea knowledge I come across is from those in the south and it may be a tea more popular in the north.
If you have any light to shine on this, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!