The north also contains tea plantations, including several newly-developed cultivars. Total output of the greater northern region is about 469,272 tons, almost half coming from the north midland close to Hanoi.

At about 1,700 m, a tiny settlement of the Dao ethnic group, one of Vietnam’s 54 recognized minorities, materializes out of the thin air. Wild tea trees planted five to ten generations ago, are scattered all about. Smoke finds its way lazily out chinks in the long house roof as we sit for tea made from a stash of home-processed leaf. It is Shan Tuyet, "mountain-snow" tea, a wild –crafted type with large silvery leaf buds, one of Vietnam’s trademark teas. The broad leaf is well-twisted, dark green, with a fair number of large, silvery tea buds, indicating a late spring flush. The liquor poured into old juice glasses is of a rich orangey hue, smoky, with an organic aroma. Like quite a few of Vietnam wild green teas it exhibits a frank bitterness, layered with smoke. The fresh vegetal nuances do not keep long; there is a tendency to fire these teas insufficiently, leaving spongy leaves with too much moisture.

Small holder Tran Van Thai and his wife give a warm welcome to visitors persistent enough tohire a car and make it out to their picturesque 8-hectare tea garden. Tran is a third generation farmer who seems to revel in the natural routine of tea-making. He and his wife process their tea in their home, where it is fired in a metal drum over a wood fire. The leaves tumble like tiny bits of clothing in an old drier, a promising blur of green. Tran occasionally reaches in and scoops up a bit of hot tea leaf to gauge the temperature. A beguiling, sweet grassy scent spreads throughout the room. After several minutes the tea maker catches a handful of leaf and gently manipulates it with his finger tips, judging its temperature, moisture content, color, friability; then, the motor is reversed, the metal vanes inside the drum screw the tea forward and into a bamboo basket below the oven. Tran’s wife cools the leaf with an electric fan as if it were fresh-cooked sushi rice.

An old Chinese rolling machine takes the tea for a lengthy cycle of mechanical crushing and twisting; then, it is ready for a final firing. A sample reveals a graceful gray-green, small-medium dry leaf, well-twisted and fully-fired, a rich, vegetal dark green infusion with a promising, delicate, greenish-yellow liquor. However, it lacked the promised sweetness and freshness.

Between 1925 and 1930 French investment in the tea industry in the south initiated a period of rapid expansion. The period from 1940 to 1954, when the French left Vietnam, the tea industry was in flux, but support came from the Soviet Union and China.

In 1958 the total area under tea was 30,000 hectares. The period of the American war was difficult for the tea industry in the south, but in the north it continued to slowly evolve. By 1977, Vietnam produced 17,896 tons of dry tea. By 1985, this had grown to 25,391 tons.

Today, Vietnam produces a total of 165,000 tons of made tea, from 131,487 hectares (2008). Productivity has climbed from .80 tons/ha in 1998 to 1.43 tons today. Export value grew from USD 44,840,250 to 155,000,000, reflecting dramatic increases in planting, the use of agricultural chemicals, the development of new tea varieties and economic liberalization, which began in the late 1980s and continues today.

Seen another way, since 1995, Vietnam’s tea production has more than doubled and exports have increased almost 300%. Taiwan and Japan are the biggest Asian importers of Vietnamese green tea; Russia and Iraq have been important buyers, as well. Vietnam now ranks as the world’s 5th largest tea exporting country, dueling it out with Indonesia, its biggest competitor for first place within ASEAN.

Vietnam Tea Association (VITAS) chairman, Nguyen Kim Phong, has spoken to these issues. He has fairly pointed out that the country’s approximately 700 small-to-medium sized tea processing enterprises suffer from capital shortages and may not be able to expand facilities, improve plant stocks, etc. There is a shortage of collateral, assets such as equipment, buildings and land that banks can accept as security for loans. A contraction of credit has put pressure on interest rates. The tea industry faces a serious shortage of skilled labor and management.

It takes years to gear up an agriculturally-based industry for greater output. As the experience in China shows, growth is often achieved at the expense of food quality, safety and purity. In order to reach a goal as ambitious as US$1 billion, the industry needs a plan of action. That plan does not exist.

Knitting these disparate elements together, providing a unified voice for the industry and lobbying to promote the interests of the nation’s tea enterprises is the brief of the Vietnam Tea Association, VITAS. Founded in 1988, one of the first private associations in the country, VITAS represents over 100 member-companies, large and small tea enterprises, including Ha Giang Tea in the mountainous north; Thai Nguyen Tea Factory in the midlands; Finlay Vietnam and Future Generation in Hanoi; Lam Dong Tea Company in the south; Saigon Tea and Unilever Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. In addition to serving as a bridge between the tea industry and government, VITAS assumes important marketing and exporting activities, making it an indispensable element of the Vietnam tea enterprise.

Than Dy Ngu, managing director of Hiep Thanh Tea Company (HTC), is one of the new generation of tea dealers based in Hanoi. He believes in industry reforms, as well as economic targets. He suggests there is a need to build greater trust between key stake-holders in the supply chain, the planter/farmer, the collector, factory labor and buyer. He sees a need to strengthen contracts, improve product quality and on-time delivery, and promote sustainability in agriculture.

HTC emphasizes organic and fair trade tea. It sources fresh tea from local farmers, processes it in local factories, refines, grades and packages in Hanoi. In 2003, the company set up Ecolink, a marketing channel for small-scale producers of organic and fair trade agricultural products; it received organic (ICEA) and fair trade certification.

Nguyen Thi Anh Hong, Director, Centre for Tea Market Development and Research, the VITAS marketing arm, hopes that large and small scale tea companies working together can foster an economically viable, sustainable national tea industry, achieving the critical balance between price, volume, quality and profitability. The Vietnam tea industry is at a crossroads. It can stress volume to the exclusion of quality and push farming practices toward ecological degradation or put more emphasis on product quality and quality of life, as it heads toward the US$1 billion prize at the bottom of the cup. VITAS is in a unique position to take the initiative.