“Enjoying tea” with West Lake lotus – Cultural beauty of the capital

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/Article: Cuu Long/

Lotus tea is a long-standing tea type representing the Vietnamese tea world. It is not just a beverage, but hidden deep in each cup of tea is the elegant personality and heart of the makers. Tea, enjoy tea.

The lotus flower is considered a cultural symbol of Vietnam. With its elegant and pristine beauty, the lotus has inspired many Vietnamese works of art. Among them, the most famous is the West Lake lotus, which grows in the West Lake region of Hanoi.

West Lake lotus is also known as Bach Diep lotus. The name Bach Diep lotus comes from the fact that each lotus flower has an average of 100 petals, and some have up to 120 petals. The West Lake lotus flower has a double petal shape, large size, and deep pink color. During the blooming season, the open flower is vast and can be the size of two adult hands. This is a characteristic of West Lake lotus, with a gentle scent, along with large and plump lotus rice, and flowers are often used to marinate tea.

Every lotus season, Hanoi’s traditional lotus tea artisans are busy with “preserving the scent of heaven and earth” in each cup of tea.

Mentioning West Lake lotus tea is mentioning pride, a characteristic feature of Vietnamese people’s enjoyment culture. Considered “national cuisine”, West Lake lotus tea creates a quintessentially sophisticated but straightforward and pure drink for Vietnamese people.

West Lake lotus tea is the perfect blend of the delicious taste of tea with the gentle, pure scent of flowers and lotus, creating a unique flavor. The mix of the deep, delicate sweetness of tea with the gentle, sweet aroma of West Lake lotus flowers has captivated the hearts of Vietnamese people. With each sip of delicious tea, you can see heaven and earth and the meticulousness of the maker.

The art of marinating lotus tea is the passion and pride of Hanoians and the villages along West Lake. Therefore, from generation to generation, that traditional profession is continued as it retains a quintessential value for the land and people here.

In West Lake, many artisan families still preserve the tradition of making lotus-infused sweet soup by hand, along with family secrets, to create unique gifts with the flavor of West Lake lotus. Usually, lotus near the Dam Tri area has the best lotus quality. The tea chosen for marinating must be rustic and grown according to the VietGAP technology of Thai Nguyen.

The artisans must dry the tea (lotus tea only uses manual drying with steam and charcoal) and then marinate the tea with small lotus petals, called “flower-sucking” tea. After two days of “sucking the flowers”, the artisans will dry the tea and begin marinating it with lotus rice, called “sucking the rice”. The tea is mixed well with flower petals, called “fragrance bags,” and brewed thoroughly for three days.

After each “rice soak”, the artisans dry the tea thoroughly. To make 1 kg of lotus tea, 1,000-1,200 lotus flowers are needed, depending on how big or small. In particular, every “rice” is tea, marinated, and dried, and this step is repeated up to 5-7 times so that the lotus scent can be absorbed into the new tea flavor, giving us a premium drink. Therefore, Hanoi lotus tea is precious not only because of the rare West Lake lotus but also because the process of marinating the tea is very sophisticated and elaborate.

The essence of lotus tea also lies in the art of enjoying tea. To have a delicious lotus-infused teapot, you need good water, good tea, a standard way to brew tea, a teapot, and a tea partner.

Properly brewed lotus tea will have a pink-brown or precise green watercolor (depending on the type of tea), sparkling with a fragrant lotus scent. When enjoying the tea, the tea drinker does not drink it right away but gently brings the cup to his nose to feel the incredible, sweet aroma of the tea. Then, take a small sip and slowly sip, tasting the bitterness on your lips, the astringency on your tongue, and finally, the sweetness in your throat. The permeating sweetness of the lotus flower tightly entwines each firm petal of delicious tea, spreading evenly into the color of West Lake lotus tea.

West Lake lotus tea is very suitable for those passionate about the natural flavor of lotus. After 2-3 weeks of tea, the water still retains the delicious, incredible taste of the tea.

When we drink the first water, we feel and enjoy the scent of lotus (enjoy the fragrance), the second water is the sweet blend of lotus scent and tea (enjoy tea), and the third water feels the gentle aroma of the lotus—the light sweetness of the ea. Then, on the fourth, fifth, and sixth drinks, we can still see the fragrance and color are still strong, that is, West Lake lotus tea.

It can be said that West Lake lotus marinated tea, in general, or Hanoi’s lotus marinated tea, in particular, is a beautiful blend of the fragrant aroma of West Lake Bach Diep lotus and the rich taste of Thai Nguyen tea. Thanks to the talents and secret secrets passed down through many generations of tea artisans, precious tea products have been created, crystallizing the thousand-year-old culture of Thang Long-Hanoi.