I'm reviewing the first of a small order of Viet Sun teas, mostly to try this year's sheng versions, and a couple of black teas. They are a favorite tea source, with good Vietnamese versions a favorite tea category, especially related to sheng (pu'er-style teas).
I've mentioned Viet Sun a bit in recent posts, in one talking about how a bias towards favorite vendors might factor in. In another interview post Steve of Viet Sun and Seth (a Vietnamese tea researcher) a lot of related background is discussed, about changes in tea styles and production inputs there.
Back to the topic at hand, these teas seemed really good. I've liked Viet Sun's sheng versions in the past, but everything came together well for both (quality levels seemed unusually high), and the flavor profile of one really matched my own preferences. I'm not sure why they seemed so exceptional. Favorable weather, good material to begin with, favorable processing skill development?
Here are the vendor site listings (edited down slightly; not cited in their entirety):
Y Tý Dao Village Maocha Spring 2026 ($33 for 100 grams)
Ancient tree maocha from Y Tý.
Y Tý is a beautiful tea area in Lào Cai province right on the border with China. There are two villages that have old tea trees here, one is inhabited by H’Mông people and the other Dao.
This tea is from the Dao village. Although only a couple kilometers apart, this area has more rocky soil and more windy, dry days than the H’Mông village. The leaves are also brighter green than the trees in the other area. Tea trees in Y Tý have especially beautiful leaves.
This year our friend did some exploring and found a couple more ancient tea tree gardens growing nearby the gardens where our tea was from last year. These gardens are quite high in elevation for Assamica trees and this tea shows off it's "alpine" character.
This tea brews up slowly into a rich golden brew. Heavily sweet with notes of cane sugar and meadow flowers with a light herbal character. Strong mineral note with low bitterness and astringency. Lasting huigan and strong relaxing qi.
Great longevity, set aside an hour if possible to fully enjoy this one.
Season: April 2026
Picking Standard: 1 bud, 2-3 leaves
Region: Y Tý, Lào Cai
Elevation: 1700-1800m
Y Tý H'Mông Village Maocha Spring 2026 ($33 for 100 grams)
This tea is from the H’Mông village. Although only a couple kilometers apart, this area has more clay rich soil and more humid days than the Dao village. The leaves are also darker than the trees in the other area. Tea trees in Y Tý have especially big and beautiful leaves.
This tea brews up into a rich dark golden brew. I get cane sugar, herbs, deep forest and floral/ fruity notes. This tea also features a pleasant minerality with heavy sweetness, low-medium bitterness and astringency. Deep and layered huigan and strong relaxing qi.
Of course my interpretation of individual flavors varies some; that's always the case. I identified a good bit of fruit in the first tea, and less (but some) in the second, the opposite of these descriptions. That's how flavor descriptions go; it's not exactly completely subjective, but no two interpretations would tend to be identical.
Those prices (which are the same) relate to a standard 357 gram cake costing $118. That's a bit, but then this is exceptional tea, and the market pricing for it at the producer level could be higher than for more average versions.
I looked up what it sold for in the past, in 2024, and it was $31 for 100 grams then, so recent inflation or demand shift isn't a main cause for that high-medium pricing range. I bought two different year's cakes of a Son La version, and checked that it sold for 21 cents a gram in 2023, sold then as a 370 gram cake (so it would've been $78). I really liked that tea (it's essentially all gone now), but in a side by side tasting it would stand out that these were / are both better. But then the extra edginess, astringency, and bitterness in that tea wasn't entirely negative, to me, not really relating to flaws, instead just style difference.
Review:
Dao: just wonderful! Even though it's barely started infusing yet. Bright, sweet floral notes stand out, but that could as easily transition to fruit, or may already be both. Tasting it again it's both. Light and sweet floral range (maybe orchids?) is joined by a good bit of sweet fruit (pretty close to fresh lychee). It's so good.
H'Mong: more subtle, at this stage, but it has great character, for what is showing through. It has a good bit of depth for being so light, not really fully wetted yet. Sweetness is good, and more vague floral or fruit range is there, just not strong enough to work well as a list yet. A touch of vegetable flavor integrates well, along the line of sugar snap peas. It will be interesting seeing how it all changes next round.
Dao #2: maybe I'm out of practice breaking down flavor aspects. This is just great, but it still tastes mostly floral and fruity to me. I suppose lychee does stand out. That is my overall favorite fruit too; fresh versions can be just amazing. There are different types, but even the ones that taste more sweet than anything else are still great. Feel is satisfying for this, with a little thickness, giving a sensation of your mouth watering. It's not really conventional sheng astringency, in terms of being rough or challenging. A light mineral base grounds it all more than you notice at first. The sweetness, and its role, does stand out. Aftertaste is nice, not a long as that can be, but quite significant.
H'Mong: this is pleasant too. There's a brightness to these that's hard to describe, an edge that really fresh but fully ripe fruit possesses. They really pop. It's a shame that more people don't experience fresh sheng like this more, since it comes up online that it all always needs aging. This is so far removed from rough factory sheng character, it's the difference between a pretty good tin of English Breakfast tea and a really good whole leaf, second flush Darjeeling version. It's a different kind of thing.
This is mostly floral, with that faint edge of vegetal range filling in depth. If that was closer to straight grass it would seem like a flaw, but as it's similar to fresh sugar snap pea it's nice. Feel might be a little thicker in this, with good sweetness and aftertaste carry-over. To me the other version really shines, because I love that prominent lychee flavor, but both are quite nice.
I could mention that it's my first time having tea back in Bangkok, beyond a rushed and groggy experience of a more standard version yesterday. It's my first time preparing it outside; yesterday I woke up too late, and the heat was kicking in. The kids and I were up at 4:30 AM today, related to going to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 (them a little later). So we hung out a little with cats, then got on with the day, which for them relates to playing online.
It's 28 C / 82 F and 78% humidity out here, at 7:20 AM. Yesterday we walked around to do some errands, including picking up the car, and it was much hotter. Maybe doing walking errands helped Keo and I acclimate, or maybe we just got scorched on the way to restock food and have a car again.
Dao #3: warmth and depth picks up in this. I let it brew longer, in part related to typing here. It works well stronger. Bitterness is present, but it's very limited, and feel is smooth and full. It's probably partly related to settling back into my life here, appreciating everything all the more, but this is one of the more positive tea experiences I've had in ages (this version, I mean). It just works; it all balances. The freshness, sweetness, feel, and aftertaste all really come together. That fresh lychee flavor might be evolving more towards pear. I'll probably have to get a cake of this.
H'Mong village: this is a really solid tea too, and lots of what I've described in the other carries over. The way I'm describing it might make it sound like it's like the other but with some cooked vegetable, but it's not like that. Technically maybe a little, but the freshness is generally similar. The overall balance is also good, and the intensity, sweetness, and complexity are nice. The flavor is shifting a little towards apple or pear; that change might be more complete in another round or two.
I drank a little water between this and the next round and that sweetness really came out. Usually that happens when a tea is bitter, sweet, and intense, but these might be expressing more intensity than it seems. Maybe I'm judging them more positively for really feeling this tasting experience, but my current take is that they're both really special.
Dao #4: this shifted more to pear flavor range. Mineral range is stronger, heavier, and slightly warmer. Sweetness is still good, and an emergent impression of freshness still comes across well. Intensity is great, and it's all the better for a full feel pairing perfectly with it, and aftertaste expression continuing it.
As far as considering how this might age I'd just drink it right now, a lot of it, and then if someone has enough to do that and keep some it'll probably transition nicely for 2 or 3 more years, and then not be as good again (to me, related to my expectations and preferences). But I could drink right through a half a kilogram of this, I think, more the way I typically only drink the same black tea over and over. I went through a couple of cakes of my previous favorite from Viet Sun, but that took awhile.
H'Mong: mineral really takes this over too, but it's not getting that much warmer and deeper, sticking more to the limestone mineral range. That integrates really well with less distinct floral and fruit range (all harder for me to place in this version). Intensity is good, and the way feel pairs with the experience is really nice. These are probably pretty good teas, as a quality level scale goes. It's great the way they combine the freshness, sweetness, and intensity of a young sheng without the harsher edges that can go along with that, out of balance bitterness and astringency. The material not being broken at all helps with that; it's completely whole leaf. But the quality is good beyond that.
So is this genuine old plant, wild or natural growth origin tea, is that what's going on? Maybe; probably. Some elevation and favorable growing conditions are probably also positive inputs, and the plant type is probably positive, and processing inputs. It doesn't matter though. In the end it's really nice, and trying to sort out why a tea is really good is much more pleasant than trying to figure out why limitations entered in.
Dao #5: this might be enough for notes, and 10 cups is a good bit. Mosquitos figured out where I am, and the cats have had enough time to play and smell everything.
This is still so nice, but in the same ways I've been describing, so there's no need to keep on with that. The mineral picks up a dry edge, or it seems that feel and flavor transition go together, but otherwise it's the same. On the next round (#6) mineral really picks up, and fruit flavor and sweetness have generally faded, but it's still quite pleasant.
H'Mong: more of the same as well. It might have a little more mineral base, depth, and feel structure than the other, so it's definitely not inferior, just different. That flavor range in the other really works well for me though; I do like it better. And it has good freshness, intensity, balance, and so on. The snap pea aspect has long since faded, but I'm not having much luck with a flavor list for this.
On the next round it's still holding a great balance, maybe with even more fullness of range than the other, more depth and intensity. I'll probably still let these brew a little longer, more than the nearly 30 seconds I've been using (proportion is backed off my standard 8 grams, maybe only 6), to try them stronger. But intensity was already good this round (#6; I combined notes for both), so it's just to see what changes.
Dao #7: mineral dominates the experience brewed a little stronger, this late into the infusion count. Maxing out proportion and using shorter rounds would delay that by a couple of infusions. It's still quite pleasant though, not really thinning in character much yet, or expressing that green wood flavor and astringency sheng tends to when it's pretty much done. But they are fading.
H'Mong #7: still quite pleasant, still not done, but a little diminished in range. Most sheng versions never express the brightness, freshness, positive floral and fruit range, and sweetness these did in the first half dozen rounds, so they'd never be better than this. Much higher bitterness level would be typical; I guess someone could see that as a limitation, even though I don't.
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