According to Vietnamese bibliographies, tea plants appeared  a long time a go under 2 forms: households’ garden tea plants in Red river Delta and garden tea plants in northern mountainous regions.

Le Quy Don used to write in “Van Dai loai ngu”, section IX, products as follows:

“… Tea plants rose in mountains of Am Thien, Am Cac, Ngoc Son district, Thanh Hoa province, they were very verdant luxuriant. Native people pick their leaves, crush, dry in shadow till they are dry, boil to drink. The tea is a bit cold, good for heart, lung, refresher, sleep. The tea plants’ flowers and stamens are better with natural flavor”.

In 1982, French explorers researched production and  trade of tea between Da and Mekong rivers in the Northern mountainous regions of Vietnam, from Hanoi to Moc Chau high land, through Lai Chau; to Ipang, area of Xipxoongpanna (Southern China), where there were great ancient tea plants. “Everyday, pack-delegations of 100-200 donkeys are full of salt and rice when starting and brimful of tea when coming back. Ipang is well-known about such a good tea quality that it is a special product to donate the King of China. This high-graded tea is not widely sold in market…; and everyone tries to keep a small part for themselves although they know to be strictly punished. I used to see a handful of this tea colored ivory-white, including curve and small tea leaves. Land in Van tri mountain pass in Lai Chau is very closed to Ipang, Xipxoongpanna area”.

After researching the survey of ancient tea gardens in Ha Giang province, Vietnam (1923) and South West of China (1962), French and Hollander scientists wrote: “tea gardens always develop in  banks of big river like Duong Tu river, Tsi Kiang river in China, Red River in Southern China and Northern region (Vietnam), Me Kong river in Southern China, Thailand and Indochina, Salouen and Irrawadi river in Southern China and Myanmar … ”

In 1976, academician of Academy of Sciences of Soviet Union, after research of tea plants’ evolution and with analysis of catering in wild tea plants in tea region of Sichuan, Southern China and ancient tea regions of Vietnam (Giang stream, Nghia Lo, Lang Son, Nghe An …) wrote:

… Vietnamese ancient tea plants have more much simple catechine than the ones in Southern China … Since then, creating the evolution diagram of the world tea plants following: “Camellia → Vietnamese tea → Big leaves tea of Southern China → Chinese tea → Assam tea (India)”

In summary, the world scientists at the time confirm that: tea plants have the origin from an ecological area shaped a fan, among hill tops of Naga, Manipuri and Lushai, along borderline between Assam and Myanmar in the West, passing China in the East, running over hill tops of Myanmar and Thailand in to Vietnam, East West axis from longitude of East 95^o to 120^o South North axis from  latitude of North 29^o to 11^o.

Development of Vietnamese tea plants:

a/ Before 1882:

In the olden times, Vietnamese grew tea plants under 2 methods:

• Household garden tea, they drink fresh tea leaves in Red River Delta in Ha dong town, hill tea in Nghe An province.

• Mountainous forest tea, they drink the brown tea fermented a half as regions of Ha Giang, Bac Ha…

b/ The period of 1882-1945:

Besides above two kinds of tea, 2 other new industrial tea kinds had just been born: OTD traditional technological black tea and Chinese dried green tea. Great tea plantations  of Capitalism of France with modern technology started to develop. Vietnamese people manufactured green tea in household and small plantations. Black tea was exported to West Europe, green tea mostly to North Africa. All country’s tea growing area was 13,305 hectares, the output of 6,000 tons of dry tea/year.

c/ The independent period (1945-now):

After 1945, the State began to build State-run farms and agricultural cooperatives of tea growing, OTD black tea was exported to Soviet Union-East Europe and green tea exported to China.

In the end of 2002, total area of tea growing land was 108,000 hectares in which 87,000 hectares of business tea. Total finished tea product quantity was 98,000 tons in which export tea rate accounted 72,000 tons equivalent to USD 82 million .

Tea regions in Vietnam:

Vietnam located in Asean monsoon region, the land of tea plants.

Climate, land are suitable to the tea plants’ development. A giant rainwater amount of 1,700-2,000 mm/year. Temperature at 21-22.60C, humidity at 80-85%. Land for growing tea plants consist 2 kinds of fat schit and basalt.

Tea plants grown in parallel of latitube of B11,5-22,50, dividing in to 2 regions: low region at under 300m, middle region at 300-600m, 600 high region at over 1,000m, so the tea’s quality is quite good.

Native tea breed includes 2 kinds: Midland and Shan can make green tea and black tea, especially mountainous Shan breed has buds of a lot of white naps desired by the world market. In addition, some other good tea breeds can make black tea, green tea, Oolong tea imported from China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Srilanka and India.

(Quoted from :Vietnamese tea plants” of writer Do Ngoc Quy & Nguyen Kim Phong).