According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), there are some 20 tea growing areas nationwide, where 240 processing workshops are located. It is estimated that the processing workshops can deal with some 3,100 tonnes of tender tea leaves a day. However, the last year’s total output of tea leaves could meet 88% of the demand for material from the processing workshops.
According to MARD, there are too many tea processing workshops in the tea growing locations in the north, especially in Phu Tho, Thai Nguyen and Tuyen Quang, which has certainly led to a scramble to collect materials.
There are 75 processing workshops in Phu Tho, of which the private owned Phu Ben and Phu Da workshops alone can process 175,000 tonnes of fresh tender tea leaves a year. Meanwhile, the total output of tender tea leaves in the province in 2005 was 63,700 tonnes only, just meeting 36% of the total demand for materials from local processing workshops.
The serious shortage of materials has prompted local processing workshops to do everything they think necessary to get materials, including scrambling for purchasing materials and picking young tea leaves, which is a taboo in tea processing, because it can adversely affect tea quality.
Nguyen Van Thu, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Tea Association said that all the tea leaves must be picked manually, however, the workers at Cuong Thinh and Hoai Chung companies in Phu Tho provinces do not do that.
The 25-30 cm buds, which consists of 5-6 leaves, are being picked by knife or reaping-hook, despite the warning about the bad quality of tea. Mr Thu said that farmers just think of collecting more tea leaves to sell for profit, while ignoring the long term consequenses.
MARD said that it is time to take actions to improve the current situation. It plans to close all the workshops that cannot meet the requirements on product hygiene.
In addition, local authorities have to take necessary measures to ensure the balanced development of processing workshops and tea growing areas.
According to MARD, the northern mountainous areas are the biggest tea growing areas. Several kinds of tea grown in these areas have become well known nationwide and in the international market, for example, Tan Cuong (Thai Nguyen Province), Thanh Ba (Phu Tho), and Moc Chau (Son La). The northern mountainous areas are growing 90,800 ha, accounting for 80.7% of Vietnam’s total tea area. Thai Nguyen province is leading the country in the tea growing area with 16,400 ha of tea, or 18.1% of total area.
Though the tea growing area has been increasing rapidly over the last ten years, 1996-2005, the number of tea processing workshops has been increasing even more rapidly. As a result, the total tea output is not big enough to feed the working processing plants thirsty for materials.
Another problem of Vietnam’s tea industry is the low yield. Experts said that medium-quality tea varieties are being grown in 70% of the total tea area. Only 2% of the total tea growing area in the north is being irrigated.
