How is the most expensive tea in Hanoi, priced at over 10 million VND/kg, processed?

(VTC News) - Every time West Lake lotus flowers bloom, Hanoi tea connoisseurs look forward to the lotus tea season, even though they know the price of this specialty is extremely "expensive".

With a price of more than 10 million VND/kg, lotus tea is processed very elaborately.

From May to July every year, the lotus ponds in West Lake (Tay Ho ward, Hanoi ) are brilliant with white and pink flowers, and people are busy harvesting them to sell to flower vendors or tea processing households, creating the most famous lotus tea specialty in Hanoi.

At Tri lagoon, from 5am, many growers went by boat to pick lotus, while traders waited to buy on the shore. This year, due to erratic weather and heavy rain, this flower bloomed later, and the yield also decreased.

"This year the harvest was bad, the flowers bloomed late and were not as big as every year, the output was only half of last year so the retail price of lotus was higher, about 15,000 VND/flower, an increase of 5,000 VND compared to last year," said Mr. Thanh - a Tay Ho lotus grower.

The lotus grown in this pond is mainly the hundred-leaf lotus, which is also the main ingredient that creates the "first lotus tea brand in Hanoi". Each lotus flower is the crystallization of clean water, deep pond bottom and thick mud layer, unique conditions that cannot be found anywhere else besides West Lake.

Unlike previous years, this year’s Tri Dam lotus crop was poor, so harvesting became more difficult and took more time. As soon as enough batches reached the shore, there were lotus tea specialists waiting to quickly select and purchase them.

As one of the families with a traditional profession of making lotus tea, Ms. Le Chau Giang said that every time the lotus season comes to West Lake, she takes the trouble to choose fresh, beautiful, fragrant lotus flowers in Tri lagoon from early morning. "Not all lotus species have enough fragrance to make a delicious pot of tea. For tea connoisseurs, only lotus from Tri lagoon in West Lake can satisfy them," Ms. Giang said.

Ms. Giang revealed: "The first secret of Hanoi's famous lotus tea lies in the lotus flowers. The lotus of Dam Tri is a lotus with many petals, a gentle and lasting fragrance, not too strong but deep and pure."

Lotus flowers must be harvested at dawn because this is when they give off the most fragrance.

After picking the flowers, you must quickly collect the lotus seeds, which are the scent sacs and essence of the lotus flower. According to Ms. Giang, this is the most difficult step because if you are not quick, the lotus seeds will lose their scent, but if you are not careful, they can easily break.

The tea used to make lotus tea is also carefully selected, namely Shan Tuyet tea and Thai Nguyen tea - the two best teas in Vietnam.

Few people know that to make 1 kg of premium lotus tea, the maker needs 1,000 - 1,200 lotus flowers. The brewing process lasts for many days with many changes of lotus rice. Each time is a series of meticulous steps: separating rice, mixing tea, scenting, drying... Everything is done by hand, just one careless operation can make the lotus scent incomplete. "Each layer of tea is a layer of lotus rice, brewed for 2 - 5 days, then taken out to sift out the lotus rice layer, then manually roasted in a pan. This process must be repeated 5 - 7 times to produce 1 kg of finished tea. When brewing, to know if the tea "eats" the lotus scent, it must be checked very carefully. If it does not meet the standard, the lotus rice must be filtered again, the tea must be lightly dried and then the steps must be repeated from the beginning," Ms. Giang shared.

In recent years, in addition to the traditional method of scenting lotus rice, tea makers have also created a new form of scenting dried whole flowers. With this method, the tea is scented, then placed directly into the heart of a fresh lotus flower, wrapped in lotus petals and leaves, and dried.

Whole lotus flower dried tea is beautiful, easy to preserve, convenient to enjoy and especially has a "softer" price, and is gradually becoming the choice of many customers.

Accordingly, each lotus flower costs 40,000 - 80,000 VND depending on the type.

The type of tea made elaborately from ancient Shan Tuyet tea trees costs up to 1.2 - 1.7 million VND/tael (equivalent to 12 - 17 million VND/kg). The type made from Thai Nguyen tea is equally expensive, priced from 800,000 - 1,500,000 VND/tael (equivalent to 8 - 15 million VND/kg). Ms. Giang confidently said that although very expensive, these types of tea are still popular with customers and have never been unsold because they are so famous for their delicious and delicate aroma.

Minh Duc