Nothing more popular than tea

Hanoians have been drinking tea for centuries.

Tea has been glorified in literature by writers from Hà Nội such as Cao Bá Quát (1809-1854), Thạch Lam (1910-1942) and Nguyễn Tuân (1910-1987). Of course tea drinkers’ tastes vary. Some like plain tea – poet Cao Bá Quát believed this was the best way to enjoy the refined flavor of natural tea.

Others think that since tea is itself a natural product, flowers – the essence of nature – should be added to tea to make it more enjoyable.

Hanoians drink different types of tea. Trà xanh is made with green tea leaves and is enjoyed together with sweet potatoes and pipe smoking. Dried tea buds are all trà hạt, and chrysanthemum or ginger is often added to the drink to intensify the flavor. Trà bồm is made of old tea leaves collected during the pruning for the next spring. These old leaves are sometimes pressed into cakes (trà bánh or trà mạn).

The drink made with this tea tastes tart and has a pink brown color. Trà mạn is often scented with lotus. The best tea is trà búp made from stalks of one bud and two young tender leaves. It is also called “fishing hook tea” (trà móc câu) as, when dried, the tea leaves have the shape of a fish hook. Trà búp is also sometimes called trà xanh to distinguish it from the Indian tea drunk by Westerners.

During the years when the government still subsidized prices, tea was divided into three classes. The third class was the worst. The second class was acceptable. The first class was often available only around the Vietnamese Lunar New Year and was bought with a special coupon – it was highly valued as each family was provided with only one packet of 50 grams of this high-quality tea.

Hà Nội has around 1,000 registered tea stalls and bars, to say nothing of the unregistered tea sellers scattered along streets, in parks and around lakes. The latter’s tea is often very dull. Good tea must produce a green-colored drink that tastes a little tart first, but which has a slightly sweet aftertaste. It must have a gentle aroma like that of young green rice. Some people attempt to create the necessary tartness by adding areca seeds to the beverage, but this method never produces the same effect as pure tea.

Before the August 1945 Revolution, Việt Nam had many big tea companies selling tea across Indochina such as Chính Thái, Ninh Thái and Phú Thái. Their tea was contained in glass bottles. Precious brands were sold in zinc boxes wrapped with tin foil or red cellophane. After the tea was consume, the use could sell the packaging materials at a good price: sometimes, the money obtained from selling some used bottles or boxes was enough for buying a new bottle of tea. A new occupation developed from the discarded tea-packaging materials: there was at one time in Hà Nội an army of women collectors wandering about the streets calling, “Tea bottles and scrap materials, please!”

Illustration photo

Tea drinking is a refined art. In the past, scholars and mandarins drank tea with strict rituals. In the early morning people drank tea to forget their worries and purify their minds.

The set of utensils for boiling water included charcoal, a stove, and a kettle. The tea set was placed on carved wooden trays. There were different tea sets: for one, two, three or many drinkers.

Each tea set had a big cup and several small cups. Tea was poured from the kettle into the big cup and then from the big cup into the small cups to make sure that all the drinkers shared the same quality, as the first cup from the teapot is usually very weak and the last very strong.

By using the big cup for sharing the tea, the drinkers can avoid the sediment at the bottom of the big cup.

Tea-drinking practice is much simplified these days to suit the modern, industrial lifestyle, but some people still maintain certain basic rules. Each family still has a tea set. Guests are always offered tea in the best place in the house. The host never adds hot water to a pot containing the tea he used before. Hanoians continue to value tea drinking because they consider it a part of their culture, and an important and harmonious way to socialize./.

By Quang Tâm