Ingredients · Tea
Vietnamese Red Tea
Camellia sinensis · Theaceae (tea family)
What it’s like, and how to use it
- 212°F / 100°C
- 3 to 4 minutes, or cold-brewed overnight
How to use it
Boiling water, 3 to 4 minutes, or cold-brewed overnight, which is where its honey shows best. Takes milk but does not need it.
With food
Honey and toast. Caramelised pork. Pho. Coconut. Condensed milk. Tropical fruit.
With spices
Star anise and cinnamon — the pho spices. Lemongrass. Ginger.
With tea
Drunk alone, or as an iced tea with condensed milk in the Vietnamese manner.
Its story
Where it comes from
Vietnam has some of the world's oldest tea trees, dating back a thousand years. The first plantation was opened by the French in Phú Thọ in 1890; Thái Nguyên is considered to grow the country's finest, and Bảo Lộc in the Central Highlands, Hà Giang, Yên Bái and Sơn La are the other tea provinces. Our lot's province and garden are unconfirmed.
What happened
Vietnam sits beside Yunnan, where many botanists place the cradle of tea, and has thousand-year-old tea trees of its own. Its tea industry, though, is French colonial: the first plantation opened at Phú Thọ in 1890, and French scientists reached Thái Nguyên in 1882, bringing large plantations, black tea for western Europe and green tea for north Africa. Its loveliest tea is one the shop does not carry — trà sen Tây Hồ, green tea scented again and again with the stamens of the rare hundred-petalled lotus native to Hanoi's West Lake, a batch taking thousands of blossoms and many days. It is called the first tea under heaven. As for the product's name: it is a radio greeting. Adrian Cronauer opened the six a.m. Dawn Buster show on Armed Forces Radio in Saigon in 1965 and 1966, and later said of the film built on it that if he had done what Robin Williams did in that movie, he would still be in Leavenworth.
On the shelf with it
Every product it goes into.
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Good Morning, Vietnam!
Regular price From $8.00 CADRegular price$0.00 CADSale price From $8.00 CAD
