Farmers "break the illiteracy" in spring tea cultivation.

The family of Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh in Team 1, Khe Da, Ngoc Lam Tea Factory, Thanh Chuong district, harvests tea using a machine. Photo: Dinh Ha

These past few days, the family of Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh in Team 1 - Khe Da, Ngoc Lam Tea Enterprise, Thanh Chuong district, has been very busy. They are busy both taking care of transporting tourists to visit the tea island and focusing on harvesting the first spring tea crop of the new year, a crop that tea growers call "breaking the fog" - a very important stage in the intensive cultivation and care of tea.

Ms. Minh happily shared: "During the tea plant's life cycle, around mid-November in the lunar calendar, the tea plants are pruned almost completely at the top, a process called 'tea pruning.' After about a month, new shoots will sprout, but due to the cold weather and lack of sunshine, these first branches will grow slowly, not reaching out profusely, but only having 2-4 leaves. They quickly grow larger to photosynthesize, covering the entire base of the plant to protect it from the cold. This is the 'blind' batch of tea that must be harvested and cared for urgently to welcome the warm spring sunshine, when the tea will grow faster and stronger. The subsequent 'blind' batches are the main harvests."

Workers at Hanh Lam Tea Factory mix tea before it is sent to the factory. Photo: Dinh Ha.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh is one of more than 10,000 tea-growing households in Thanh Chuong district eagerly preparing for the spring tea harvest. Currently, in tea factories and tea-growing communes, it's easy to see people harvesting tea everywhere. Besides the main workforce from tea-growing households, the bustling harvest season has also attracted a large number of laborers from non-tea-growing communes.

According to Mr. Nguyen Danh Duyen, Secretary of the Party Committee of Thanh An commune, which has nearly 450 hectares of tea plantations: This spring tea crop, harvested in the "blind" season, does not have high yields or value. Each hectare yields an average of only about 2.5 tons, and the average price is only 3,500 VND/kg. However, due to the large volume, the people have earned billions of VND from the first tea crop of the year.

The tea processing plants of the enterprises are operating at full capacity. Photo: Dinh Ha

With this "breakthrough" tea crop, the biggest beneficiaries are the tea processing enterprises. Mr. Nguyen Van Ky, Deputy Director of Hanh Lam Tea Enterprise, said: "This 'breakthrough' tea crop has no 'buds' (young shoots), and the leaves are few and old, so it cannot be used to process tea leaves but mainly to process CTC tea, which is powdered tea, the main product of the enterprises. This is also a tea crop that does not require the use of pesticides, so it is favored by customers. These days, the processing plants of the enterprise are running at full capacity."

With nearly 5,000 hectares of tea plantations, including over 4,000 hectares of commercially grown tea already yielding harvests, Thanh Chuong tea growers harvested over 10,000 tons of tea in this "breakthrough" tea crop, earning over 30 billion VND - a significant amount that improves livelihoods and supports production, laying the groundwork for abundant harvests in subsequent years.