Thai Nguyen Tea Conquers the World Market - Part 1: Outstanding Advantages

Tea is identified as a crop with special potential, a key agricultural product, and a great brand value of Thai Nguyen province. Many famous tea growing areas such as Tan Cuong, Trai Cai, Minh Lap, La Bang, Khe Coc, Tuc Tranh, etc. not only create a specialty product with high economic value, but also from the quality, packaging, name, color, Thai Nguyen tea creates a traditional product with deep historical and cultural values ​​of Thai Nguyen land.

Thai Nguyen is the leading province in the country in tea production and processing.

Quality upgrade

Dubbed “The First Famous Tea”, Thai Nguyen tea has long been known for its aroma and rich flavor. Mr. La Van Song, currently living at 101, Hue Street ( Hanoi ), said: My family is addicted to drinking Thai Nguyen tea. I have tried many types of tea from Lam Dong province, Taiwan (China)… but I have never seen a place where the tea flavor is as rich, sweet, and memorable after just one sip as Thai Nguyen tea.

With this outstanding advantage, tea trees are increasingly being invested heavily by Thai Nguyen people in production and processing. Mr. Nguyen Ta, Head of the provincial Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection, said: Over time, tea trees will age, yielding low productivity and quality. This is the reason why the province always pays attention to planting new and replanting tea with new varieties, high productivity and quality, serving the processing of high-class green tea, specialties and diverse tea products.

From 2021 to present, each year Thai Nguyen has newly planted and replanted over 400 hectares of tea, increasing the area of new tea varieties with high productivity and quality to over 18.3 thousand hectares currently, accounting for 82.7% of the province's tea area. - Mr. Nguyen Ta

Along with that, localities have focused on promoting the application of scientific and technological advances in the production and processing of safe and quality tea. To date, the whole province has over 6,000 hectares of tea certified to meet VietGAP and organic standards; nearly 7,000 hectares of tea apply safe and quality cultivation processes, increase the use of organic fertilizers, preparations, biological pesticides and proactive and water-saving irrigation technology.

Mr. Duong Van Hao, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, said: Intensive tea cultivation applying VietGAP and organic standards, using organic and biological fertilizers and pesticides, and applying proactive irrigation methods in tea production has contributed to improving the soil and environment, gradually moving towards green and sustainable production, improving productivity, quality, and product value, bringing high economic efficiency.

Currently, Thai Nguyen tea makers have used new, semi-industrial processing equipment such as stainless steel rotating plates, gas roasters, and automatic electric tea roasters to serve processing, contributing to improving production efficiency and tea quality.

Promoting the strengths of the land of "the first famous tea", Thai Nguyen pays special attention to establishing and granting codes for growing areas and agricultural product packaging facilities to ensure compliance with the regulations of importing countries on plant quarantine, food safety and traceability. From 2020 to present, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has deployed, propagated and guided the establishment of 62 tea growing area codes in the whole province. Mr. Nguyen Ta emphasized: This is the "passport" to bring Thai Nguyen tea products to the world market.

Tea trees have become a symbol of Thailand, known to many tea connoisseurs at home and abroad. Therefore, tea processing is increasingly improved to suit consumer tastes. Currently, outdated manual processing equipment that does not ensure food safety and hygiene (FSH) has been replaced by new, semi-industrial processing equipment (stainless steel rotating plates, gas roasters, automatic electric tea roasters), contributing to improving production efficiency and tea quality. Accordingly, in the province, there are 38 enterprises, 163 cooperatives, 251 traditional craft villages, with over 91,000 households processing green tea and high-quality green tea that have applied mechanization in the stages of roasting and rolling tea to ensure FHS.

Notably, production facilities have focused on packaging and preservation (using vacuum machines and aroma machines), improving product designs, packaging, and labeling to trace the origin of products, which has helped Thai Nguyen tea products improve in quality and value. By the end of 2024, the province's processed tea output will reach over 53,500 tons.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, Head of the Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development of the province: "The Thai Nguyen tea brand is continuing to grow as many enterprises and cooperatives are actively building and forming production and consumption links according to the value chain, participating in building products that meet OCOP standards. To date, Thai Nguyen has had 195 tea products certified with OCOP standards from 3-5 stars".

Take your brand "flying" far

To spread the “tea fragrance” of Thai Nguyen far and wide, the province has been actively implementing the branding of tea products. Through promotional activities and consumption promotion of tea products by all levels, sectors and functions in the province, it has contributed to increasing the opportunities to find and expand the market for Thai Nguyen tea products.

For example, in 2023, the Provincial People's Committee and Vietnam Airlines Corporation signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement for the period 2023 - 2027, opening up opportunities for both sides to develop tourism promotion, trade investment and aviation. Currently, Tan Cuong Xanh Trading and Import-Export Company Limited has been honored to become a supplier of Thai Nguyen tea on Vietnam Airlines flights and has exported delicious tea shipments to the UK.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, noted: Through trade promotion activities, the consumption of agricultural products has created conditions for tea products of enterprises and tea cooperatives in the province to have more opportunities to participate in large commercial centers and supermarkets, expanding the consumption market.

Many businesses and cooperatives in Thai Nguyen have applied digital technology in connecting and consuming tea products.

Applying digital technology in connecting, promoting and consuming the province's tea products, up to now, basically OCOP certified tea products have been connected, promoted, introduced and consumed on the e-commerce platforms of C-ThaiNguyen, Vo So (voso.vn), PostMart (postmart.vn). In particular, Thai Nguyen tea products are also consumed through Vietnamese points of sale called "Proud of Vietnamese Goods" which is the address to introduce and sell products with Vietnamese brands.

Through Vietnam Point of Sale, tea products of many units and enterprises such as: Ha Thai Tea Joint Stock Company, Thai Minh Import-Export Trading Company Limited, Thai Nguyen Import-Export Joint Stock Company, Hao Dat Tea Cooperative, Son Thanh Safe Tea Cooperative, Nhat Thien Huong Tea Cooperative, ... are introduced through official distribution channels to consumers, without counterfeit, fake, poor quality goods affecting the reputation and brand of the enterprise. Currently, many tea companies and cooperatives have changed their business strategies, switching to closed-chain production from production, preliminary processing, processing, diversifying product designs and consumption, while developing production and consumption of tea products associated with community tourism development...

Building, developing brands and expanding market research have contributed to increasing the value of Thai Nguyen tea products. Currently, the value of tea products has increased by 10-15% compared to 2021, and the price of Thai Nguyen tea is always higher than that of other tea regions in the country. The average price of Moc Cau tea products ranges from 300,000 to 500,000 VND/kg, and the price of Tom Non tea ranges from 600,000 to 1.5 million VND/kg depending on the season and region. In the province's specialty tea regions such as Tan Cuong (Thai Nguyen City), La Bang (Dai Tu), Trai Cai (Dong Hy), Tuc Tranh (Phu Luong)... the price of high-end tea products such as Dinh tea has a high value of 2.5 million VND to 5 million VND/kg, in which there are places where Dinh tea products are sold at very high prices from 10 million to 12 million VND/kg of finished products.

The reality is that Thai Nguyen tea is being consumed quite strongly domestically, while tea export output tends to decrease significantly compared to 10 years ago.

Over the years, Thai Nguyen has continuously paid attention to and prioritized investment resources to develop tea plants. With a total area of about 22.2 thousand hectares, fresh bud output reaching over 267.5 thousand tons, in 2024, the value of tea products will reach 13.4 thousand billion VND, Thai Nguyen province continues to lead the country in tea production.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/202506/che-thai-nguyen-chinh-phuc-thi-truong-the-gioi-ky-1-nhung-loi-the-vuot-troi-b531cef/