What’s behind the “yellow tea whirlwind”?

The yellow tea fever has put northern tea farms in the provinces of Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Tuyen Quang in distress. In the immediate time, tea processing factories do not have materials to run, while the long term consequences prove to be immeasurable.

Prospering thanks to tea, meeting with misfortune because of tea

A worker of the Phong Hai Farm in Bao Thang district in Lao Cai province said that local residents have been living on tea plants for the last many years. However, no one can get rich with the career, because the tea price always fluctuates. They have to work hard all the day on the tea field, but the turnover was modest, because the tea price was low, at just 2300-2500 dong per kilo of fresh tender tea leaves.

However, local residents suddenly had a new life one day, when Chinese businessmen began flocking to northern provinces to collect yellow tea. The businessmen always offer high prices to scramble for tea materials with domestic processing companies. As a result, the tea price has soared from 2500 dong per kilo to 5000, and then to 8000 dong per kilo. The price once hit 12,000 dong per kilo, which has prompted people rush to collect tea for selling to Chinese.

The tea price got so attractive that many people pick up young tea buds for sale as well, though they well understood that this would kill the tea plants. Especially, some merchants mixed tea leaves with other kinds of leaves in order to lie about the weights.

However, local residents have to pay penalty for their behavior. Chinese businessmen suddenly stopped collecting tea in Vietnam, which has forced the tea price down by a half. As a result, a lot of merchants have incurred big losses. Meanwhile, farmers have suffered because the tea fields have become ragged and withered, and no one knows when they would become refreshed.

The average tea productivity is six tons per hectare; however, with the overexploitation, the yield of the next crop would decrease by 20-30 percent. When the “yellow tea whirlwind” rushed down, more than 70 enterprises in Lao Cai provinces, big and small, faced the material shortage. Phong Hai Farm, for example, lost 250 tons of fresh tender tea leaves just within one month, while tens of hectares of tea fields have got exhausted.

Why did Chinese businessmen accept to buy tea at such high prices? Vu Quoc Thanh, Director of the Phong Hai Farm, said that the Chinese tea production process is simple which does not require high techniques. What people need to do is to collect fresh tea leaves for drying, then crush with machines for 3-5 minutes, or crush manually for 5-7 minutes. After that, tea leaves will be put into heat incubation for one or two hours before they are exposed to the air. When the tea leaves get yellow and withered and the moisture level decreases to 13-18 percent, they are ready for sale.

Meanwhile, under the Vietnamese standards, tea leaves need to go through a lot of different treatment phases to ensure the hygiene and reduce the moisture level to 5-7 percent only.

The Chinese processing way allows minimizing the production costs, about 1000-1500 dong per kilo, while it takes 5000-6000 dong per kilo to process tea in accordance with the Vietnamese method. Low production cost is the main reason which allows Chinese businessmen to make profits even when they pay high for materials.

Making every effort to survive tea fields

The yellow tea fever has been eased in Bao Thang district; the tea fields have recovered, step by step. However, local residents never forget the “bitter tea lesson”.

Thanh said that the local authorities have been trying to ease the consequences of the yellow tea fever. Officers of economics division, farmers’ association came to meet farmers to explain the consequences of the tea exploitation, showed them the right way to take care, harvest and prevent insects. Phong Hai has been trying to negotiate with loyal partners and seek new clients, which has helped raise the export price from 1.37 dollars to 1.6 dollars per kilo.

However, experts have warned that the yellow tea fever may occur one again in the future, because Chinese tea plants still lack materials.

Source: Kinh te nong thon

Tags: Vietnam agriculture, Vietnam tea