The Story of Sa De Phin Ancient Tea
The Mong people regarded tea merely as an everyday drink. They never thought of picking the buds to sell or trade, even though life high in the mountains was full of hardship. It was only later, when Tam Duong Tea Investment and Development Joint Stock Company came to them, with a sincere desire to promote the sweet character of Sa De Phin, as well as to preserve this precious tea variety from the damaging hands of traders who sought only profit. To date the company has partnered with 170 households growing ancient tea trees in Sa De Phin across 7 villages, bringing more than 170 hectares under protection, preservation and cultivation. From then on, Sa De Phin ancient tea became a fine tea known to many people. Thanks to the dedication put into production, with every stage from growing, tending, harvesting, processing, packaging to storage being strictly and scientifically controlled, the product Sa De Phin ancient tea now carries a barcode, offers traceability of origin and guarantees its quality.
Sa De Phin ancient tea is made from naturally tiny tea buds, which through processing curl into leaves resembling the point of a needle, with a very distinctive flavor. Pouring the tea into the pot, one can sense an aroma that drifts yet is rich and intense. That mystery is like the figure of a Mong girl picking tea amid the early morning mist, floating and spreading through a space that is half dream, half real. The tea has a lush green color, different from ordinary teas, like a tender young tea bud still soaked in the morning dew. The taste carries the sweetness of cane molasses, leaving a cool, long-lingering aftertaste in the throat, mingled with the characteristic fragrance of the tea leaf, a special aroma, sweet and cool, gently reaching the nose; when you savor the aroma blended with the tea water in your mouth, it is so pleasant it leaves you entranced, an aroma that no other natural tea has ever possessed.
To this day the product Sa De Phin ancient tea, together with the other products of Tam Duong Tea Investment and Development Joint Stock Company, has been trusted by customers and highly rated for its quality and food safety. The company has been and continues to provide work for nearly 2,000 highland ethnic households through tea growing; the income of these communities has risen, with many families earning from 60-120 million VND per year. This success comes precisely from determination, from a fierce aspiration to reach out to the world, and from the wish to blend traditional identity with modernity in order to create the highest-quality products under the common banner of the "Tam Duong Tea" brand.