Bao Loc: Home to Many Famous Tea Brands

Bao Loc is endowed with fertile basalt soil and a mild climate, favourable conditions for tea development. Tea plants quickly spread all over Bao Loc from FlutBlao tea farm owned by French Blaosierre in the 1930s, and the tea industry has been developing ever since.

 

Tea brewing was started in the 1950s and many famous tea names were born, including Do Huu and Quoc Thai. Ms Do Thi Ngoc Sam, owner of the famous Do Huu tea brand and leader in B'Lao tea branding programme, said: “Each famed B’Lao tea product has its own flavours and each producer has its own secrets of making flavours. The aromatic flavour of jasmine and local fragrant flowers is typical of B’Lao tea in Bao Loc City. To date, Bao Loc tea products have become more diversified. It is easy to see different tea houses and tea shops along Tran Phu Street. Tourists can drop in at any tea house to take a rest and enjoy specialty B’Lao tea.

 

Bao Loc is home to both tea plants and tea processing industry. In the past decade, many Vietnamese and foreign businesspeople have come to Bao Loc to invest in this industry, including Chinese, Japanese, South Korean businesspeople. With nearly 1,500 tea processing units, Bao Loc is branded the tea capital in Vietnam. B'Lao tea is not only sold in Vietnam but also around the world.

 

In recent years, the Bao Loc tea industry has made a comprehensively scientific and technological revolution from the stages of planting to processing. To date, tea varieties are more diverse. New varieties include TB14, LD97, O Long, Ngoc Thuy, Kim Tuyen and Tu Quy. Mr Doan Trong Phuong, Deputy Chairman of Vietnam Tea Association (Vitas) and Director of Lam Dong Tea Joint Stock Company (Ladotea), said: The adoption of new tea varieties has increased economic value by dozens of times.

 

Processing facilities have accessed new technologies and invested in modern processing lines. Leading tea producers and processors include Ladotea, Phuong Nam, Tam Chau, Tram Anh, and Phu Quan. Mr Pham Minh Khanh, Deputy Director of Phuong Nam Tea Company, said modern tea processing and production lines improve productivity and reduce labour costs. The company has invested in production lines to produce Taiwanese Oolong tea with a capacity of 1.5 tonnes of fresh tea leaves a day.

 

Presently, Bao Loc has over 8,400 ha of tea farms, harvests more than 65,000 tonnes of fresh tea leaves a year and supplies about 25,000 tonnes of finished products. The city exports more than 12,000 tonnes a year.