Meeting a veteran tea enthusiast in a Honolulu meetup

 

this was a tea meetup in Bangkok instead; I didn't take a picture this time

I just tried holding another open tea tasting / meetup where I am now, in Honolulu.  It was a great success, because I met one of those well-regarded "tea people" you can talk to online, but don't tend to meet very often.  He is one of the founders and owners of Teas We Like, which I interpret to be the best Western facing curated aged sheng pu'er vendor, I think mostly selling teas aged in Hong Kong and Taiwan.  But you can check for yourself.

I can't think of another example of a similar vendor, but all the same they are well-regarded, which isn't always how a vendor covering a limited scope goes.  It's odd that aged sheng would seem like a niche.  There are market-style vendors, like Yunnan Sourcing and King Tea Mall, but that's something else, the opposite of a curator (where they select only very good versions, and list far fewer items).  I can think of one poorly regarded aged sheng curator vendor, but of course there's no need to name names.

I'd planned to meet a half dozen people through Reddit contact, offering others a chance to try teas, and he was the only one who made it from that planning.  Two other neighbors joined, so it was enough.  Really two people is enough for a meetup, so in a sense it was more than enough.  

It doesn't matter who that one person joining is, related to a tea resume, but as I see it there are probably less than a dozen main current sources for good teas overall, within the standard Western acceptance.  Maybe that should be narrowed to "for pu'er," but it might also work in general.  Two main ones are White2Tea and Yunnan Sourcing.  As I see it this source is pretty much on that same level, just in a different theme.  It's still related to pu'er, as those are, which I drink, generally as young / unaged versions.  I just met William of Farmerleaf a year or two back, someone else on that short list of best sources.  

It's nice comparing notes with a like-minded enthusiast, and especially interesting because he takes tea more seriously than I do.  Lots of casual tea drinkers would.  I'll describe what we tried, and try to capture how that part works at the same time, what kind of "seriousness" comparison I'm referencing.

I drink pretty basic teas, and keep the brewing and drinking experience pretty basic.  It's mostly that.  One part is that I have very little tea budget to work with, living between Thailand and Honolulu on a Thai budget, even if it's a decent IT professional income over there (in Bangkok).  It's still pretty low by US standards.  We are poor.  And that's fine; things worked out that way, and it works to just adjust around it.  We get to be middle class again when we live back in Bangkok, as we will again in June and July.

That's only part of it though; my overall tea exposure spans a unique range.  I've been able to try a ridiculous amount of amazing tea related to writing a blog about it, and vendors sharing samples (or considerable volume, but usually it's samples).  I might've tried a couple thousand versions of tea.  Whatever the count would be it's beyond counting.  

Some were amazing quality, high demand, wonderful to experience teas, and others were just unusual related to range, the kinds of teas you just don't get to.  Off the top of my head small-batch Russian shou pu'er comes to mind; who tries that?  Or I've tried a lot Liu Bao and Fu zhuan hei cha over the last couple of years.  One tangent related to Henan province teas, exploring hybrid style approaches there, and a couple of other vendors have shared really nice sheng pu'er, what I tend to drink.  Extended tangents related to Indonesia, Georgian, Nepalese, and Indian teas.

Let's get back to that tasting theme, on to the teas, and I can explain how two tea enthusiasts' experiences and perspectives can vary, based on that interesting discussion.

2024 Farmerleaf Na Lang Laos sheng (reviewed here):  when I met William (of Farmerleaf) he passed on most of a cake of this, which could be the best Laos origin sheng I've experienced.  I've tried a good bit of that type from Laos; this might have been something like the 10th version, or maybe it's a good bit more, since I've tried a few sample sets.  It's pretty good quality, and pretty close to standard Yunnan style, as SE Asian versions go.  Not a close match, but in the general range.  I could add more about terroir inputs versus processing and such, but it seems better to leave that out, since it would be speculative and general.

That new tea friend pays more attention to teas than I tend to, and notices body feel as a main input.  A vendor would need to be able to evaluate teas on a different level, where a tea blogger can just pass on an impression a few times a month, and however that works out is fine.  If a reader's take on teas matches my own that impression could be very useful, but it might not be easy to determine that, without trying a few versions that I've already reviewed.  

The body feel / cha qi thing is something else.  People are either sensitive to that or they aren't, although you could probably develop it.  He drinks teas in the morning before eating, which is a good step towards a fuller experience of that factor, that I don't get to.  It affects pretty much everyone's stomachs negatively, just to different degrees.  For aged versions it makes more sense; the effect would be more limited.

Kind of a tangent, but I've experimented with what I can drink while doing extended water fasts, a few days into not eating.  Sheng pu'er is out, even aged sheng.  Shou works well, and aged white tea and mild hei cha is fine, teas like Fu zhuan.

To me these are all teas--in this tasting list--that I've been drinking for awhile, so it's also hard to carefully experience something I've drank a half a cake of, or in this next case multiple cakes / bings.  The teas are what they have been, over the last year or more.

2024 Quang Tom Vietnamese sheng, a more oxidized version (reviewed here):  again this is a tea I've drank over a full cake of (it's over two now?), so it's a daily drinker basic for me.  Most of what I ever drink is in that range, tied to how I approach tea now, and that budget issue.  

His take on it matches what I experienced of it, that it's a comfort tea, pleasant in a sense, it's just not especially complex, and lacks aging potential.  It's a bit novel, related to few teas outside of SE Asia being like that, but it's not so unusual for Vietnamese production.  Flavors are pleasant, warm, with some fruit range, and a bit of edge and bitterness to give it balance, just not much.  

The 2023 version included a lot of honey flavor, and this has some, but not like that.  It's also flawed by a storage input (as I interpret it, related to first trying that one when quite new), not being dried fully during the pressing process, which didn't ruin the tea, but the effect was surely more negative than positive.

the 2023, left, is even more oxidized

In terms of ranking these teas he said that the Laos version seemed best, and this second best, leaving the next aged cake as the least favorite (lowest quality?; it could relate to novelty, beyond that).  That last version, the one I've not described yet, is a low cost factory tea, not really intended to be something other than what it is.

I suppose this tea version contributes less body feel than the first, that it expresses less cha qi.  Since I don't get that I don't know, and I didn't push him to rate it.  

In discussion I compared this to running:  I don't really "get" the runner's high, even though I must experience the same endorphins others tend to.  I feel less pain during that hormone release, and flow better, but I certainly don't feel high.  With teas that contribute a pronounced enough feel I'll notice it, but not with most.  He confirmed that most teas don't provide as significant a degree of that experience as a limited range that do, so regardless of being tuned in I'm not missing all that much, while drinking basic teas.

2007 CNNP 8281 (reviewed here):  it's odd that we tried this tea.  In reviewing what else I had on hand, with him and my neighbor, he said that he was interested in this one, especially after smelling the cake.  It's so basic though; it seems odd that someone into the opposite extreme for quality and novelty would find it interesting.  But I kind of get it; it must relate to appreciation for the entire range (of aged sheng), and maybe in part the novelty of a Bangkok storage input.  And maybe for a point of comparison; it can be interesting for a tea enthusiast to try Lipton once every half dozen years, to experience that other range.

comparison with another CNNP version, the 2007 8891

This tea becomes more approachable and pleasant after a few rounds, but to me it's a really basic version even in comparison with the other basics (but then young SE Asian teas are pretty standard for me now; I had three others from Thailand and Vietnam that we didn't get to).  This tea could really use another half dozen years to finish that transition process, and the part about it improving after 3 or 4 rounds relates to it including a rough edge earlier on.  It's not harsh, and definitely not bitter or astringent, but the warm tones are also rough, something remotely along the lines of cardboard, just not exactly that.

My neighbor, who isn't into such teas, might have interpreted some of the novelty as pleasant, but it seemed it mostly came across as unusual.  My new tea friend seemed open to experiencing it, even though the character couldn't cross past favorable in some ways.  I do like that tea; it's clean and balanced enough, for moving through so much transition in 19 years, in hot and humid Bangkok storage.  It works as a breakfast tea, which is my normal context for experiencing most tea.

Take-aways

It was interesting comparing perspective related to a few teas I've been enjoying.  That neighbor, not so into tea, didn't have much for detailed impression to pass on, but it's nice sharing the experience.  I thought that was going to be the event theme, letting other people new to tea try some different things, but it was pleasant even though it mostly wasn't.

A half dozen people tentatively confirming and then not making it is harder to place.  Two explained why they didn't prior to the event, and three either missed it related to just running late or missing something in a chat message.  It's all good.  

Setting this kind of thing up through Facebook worked out better, when I was more active on that.  A more persistent group discussion thread could cover details, linked to an event notice, which is like a limited calendar function.  Facebook direct messaging works a little better.  I started a group related to holding events in Bangkok, here, and although the algorithm now shows almost no one the posts from there at one point it was more functional.  Facebook feeds are mostly promoted content now, or ads; it's why I'm far less active there.

I've ran across input and compared notes with people more conventionally into tea than I am before.  It's hard to know how to express that, since it's a take, and a developed approach, that only applies to a subset of people who are into tea.  I'm not even talking about aesthetics (related to surroundings, wearing a robe, tea pets, or whatever else), ceremonial brewing approach, leaning into using the complete or expanded set of gear, and all the rest, I mean just related to appreciating tea.  There are levels to it.  

I've never portrayed myself as "getting it right," or even taking on the deeper level of just noticing the finer tea aspects, and my own reactions to the teas.  I've explored a lot, and shared a lot about how that went.  During tastings I can spend a couple of hours with a couple of teas, so I do vary the degree of focus, depending on the context.

It was interesting hearing a bit about how following a related but different path goes.  Most people couldn't communicate that clearly, but he could.  Within the noisy environment of a half dozen people meeting for the first time that wouldn't have come across, so the limited attendance was actually ideal, in a sense.  I've recently read one of those traditional quotes from an ancient Chinese tea master to this effect, about how 3 or 4 people sharing tea is ideal, and with 6 or 7 it's complete chaos.  He put it better than I could, even with translation loss of clarity factored in.  

I suppose it all depends on the desired outcome, and how closely people are aligned going in.  And the event theme; someone presenting teas and ideas about the experience would still work well in a group, even for a dozen people, but I've always favored letting the social dynamic in a group gathering share a lot of the focus.  

That's all the easier with two people, even though that might seem counter-intuitive, that the social function actually works better the smaller the group.  Quieter people tend to say very little in a larger group, even with 5 or 6 people, so you end up needing to adjust discussion themes or flow a little to get everyone to engage, and share their own experience.

Rainy times in Honolulu

 

I usually sort out some sub-theme as a pretense for writing when I move back to Hawaii (living between Bangkok and Honolulu), but I haven't this time.  I've been "here" for a month, and will go back in 6 weeks.

Rain has been the main running theme, beyond spending time with my kids always being what means the most to me.  Here they are:

The little one is going through an emotional time, fueled by hormone changes, but she was just messing around in that picture.  Here they are in a hike photo, along with two others:

the same shot as in the blog margin photo

Back in 2006 or 2007, when I was in grad school here, it rained one rainy season for 40 days, and it has been like that again, the rainiest period since then.  It has caused flooding, road damage, power outages, and brown water advisories that increase risk of swimming, from run-off outlet flow being unclean.  I don't remember us--our family--experiencing much for power outages, ever, anywhere, so it was actually kind of cool going a few hours without power, to freak out and use candles and such.

I didn't hear that there were any fatalities related to this flooding, although I guess people die in car accidents all of the time, so something a bit indirect like that could have cost people their lives, or even the limited flooding.  A potential dam failure in the north could have caused extreme damage, lots of death and destruction, but luckily it didn't.  Family friends in the east lost electrical power for over a day; that would be rougher than spending an hour playing Uno.

Maybe the main impact is that lots of people came for vacation and spent a week getting rained on, although the rainiest three weeks all had a break of a day of clearer weather in the middle.  It's not nothing, that they spent thousands to get here and couldn't do most of what they had hoped to do.  

But it's easy for locals to go past not caring much about tourists on to being resentful of them.  Why?  Because they can be disruptive, some few of them, drunk and disorderly, or guilty of littering.  They might stand on the coral (which kills it), or endanger themselves.  That I don't see as so annoying, since someone getting sucked into a blowhole, or needing to be rescued on a hike, is just par for the course in ocean resort areas.

It might be that the poorer half of all locals might struggle to cover basics, like eating, while tourists show up and are fine with paying $25 for a burger, or $10 for a coffee or juice.  It doesn't affect locals that much, since those prices were never going to be reasonable locally anyway, even outside the resort areas, but it highlights the have / have not divide, and it's easy to see outgroups negatively.

I joined the Red Cross, in part related to the disaster theme coming up, and more related to a friend mentioning doing the same.  Two or three weeks in I'm not placed in a position / support role yet, and I probably won't do much with that in the next 6 weeks.  It's not really set up for someone to live in an area for 2 1/2 months and then join in; it has a more corporate feel to it, if that makes sense.  So next I might look into supporting the central corporate management, since it relates to the work I do (with ISO systems, process, disaster planning, etc.), but apparently it's competitive just to try to volunteer, so who knows.

Usually I'm going on about local culture in these posts, about homelessness issues, or how my kids relate to local schooling.  I might not have said much about my daughter switching schools, and middle school seeming to be a much rougher place.  Lots of that wouldn't be area-specific; social themes change at different ages.  Her school is "urban," but it's not as if she's in a bad part of Chicago or LA.  Walking around that part of the city in the evening might be pushing it, but it would still be safe enough for me, just not for a younger girl.

Keo wraps up high school in a month or so; that went quick.  We've been back and forth for 4 years.  The plan was to change over employment, and after two years or so of intensive job search I gave up on that.

I've covered how this is an ethical concern before; if people move to Hawaii and work remotely that puts pressure on local housing, raising costs for everyone.  It's slightly less of a concern if you live somewhere that outsiders should be, more specifically in Waikiki.  But if we could've bought a million dollar house that could have caused an incremental demand shift, and to some extent these present conditions still do.

It reminds me of another ethical concern I've changed stances on in the past, eating a meat based diet.  Billions of animals must live in captivity now to support people's carnivorous diets, and for 17 years I didn't participate in that, beyond not being completely vegan (a little milk and eggs goes a long way towards resolving protein intake issues).  It's not a problem any one person causes, in any significant way, but altogether it leads to factory farming.  If you've ever visited such a place, a factory farm, it means more to you.  Again there isn't an easy fix, beyond the extreme solution of being vegan.  There may well be environmental trade-offs related to that too, since it's not easy to supplement your diet to be effective and complete, and production of some of substances people add to do so may cause their own impact.

Related to the other local culture themes, culture-shock, transitions in conditions locally, experiencing truly local culture, and so on, there is no news.  Trump's impact on the economy, culture, and foreign impressions of Americans also hasn't come up a lot.  We met with Canadian friends a month ago, and they said that they would no longer buy US made goods, and you really can't blame them.  It might be hard to keep track of which outrageous theme triggered that.  Trump saying that he wanted to annex Canada?  Those tariffs, or two unjustified wars?  The US is a mess.

Cue the conservative 40%, his followers, responding "don't live here then."  It's a mess whether any one person or family chooses to stick around or not, so that's about as relevant as comparing things to historical time period standards of living.  It is a little strange how entire nations have PR images, related to one part of what fell apart for the US.  Russia has been looking terrible for years now, right?  China seems more positive for not invading any of their neighbors, recently.  The bar goes lower.

The local weed booth outlet recently moved from across the alley to down at the end of the alley, making for a prompt to consider what greater acceptance of that means.  I smoked weed, when I was younger, but it's been awhile, a couple of decades.  It doesn't seem any more impactful than alcohol.  I suspect that within a couple more years the theme of long term side effects and problems will be more common, and plenty of people have already experienced that.  

Just yesterday I saw a guy with a 2 or 3 year old child buying weed there, and it didn't seem right.  Would it have seemed different if he had put a 12-pack in a cart in a grocery store?  It might have.  So that's strange, that I'm still biased myself, in spite of that background.

Some of that earlier have / have not theme enters in.  We aren't budgeted for buying those $8-10 coffees or juices, someone spending however much to be on drugs could seem wasteful, like a form of excess.  But of course that's their budget, so the critical judgment isn't well grounded.  If someone wants to spend $100 to breathe more concentrated oxygen that's on them.  We have to be careful of externalizing our own image or limitations concerns.

Having kids changes things.  People smoke weed in our street all of the time, so about one time in 10 or so venturing out you might smell it, just walking through, or maybe even a little more.  People drinking beer in our alley (soi) back in Thailand drives my wife crazy, for a similar reason.  A public street isn't the place for that kind of thing, per one normal take.  In the US eventually there would be repercussions if someone kept drinking beer in public, but with the weed it looks like smoking a cigarette, and it's completely normalized now.  Keoni mentioned there is a normal place for kids to smoke weed at school.  Strange.

Hawaii is great; I should be mentioning that.  I love the feel, the people, and outdoor experience options.  It's a great environment for our kids, even with people smoking weed, and homeless people living on most blocks.  It's culturally diverse, and people really value contact with nature, in their own ways.  Kalani just went ice skating with friends yesterday, without a lot of close parent supervision, and Oahu is safe enough that's still not a high risk.  It's shifting, and in a few more years it might seem so.  But it's nice being here for the time period that it doesn't seem outrageous for your medium age kids to be unguarded, yet.

Being rained on wasn't so bad; that's how life in the tropics goes sometimes.  Not as often as you might expect; there has probably been no corresponding rainy period like this in 19 years.  In Bangkok the monsoon season can get a little rough for a week or two, at times, but there is almost never a completely rainy month over there.  There was, about 17 or 18 years ago, in October, when it's not supposed to rain like that, and they experienced terrible flooding.  It was all pretty touch and go in the 2025 rainy season, close to being too much.  

These climate change related variations of what is normal will be even more awful in the next few years, probably.  But this last one over the last month here hasn't been so bad, unless it ruined your vacation, or destroyed your home, and then maybe it was.

More images of what has gone on this past month:

the Ala Wai, where I run; this is the outflow channel that gets over-filled during rains

view on a really early morning run from Diamondhead

hiking up Koko head, another old volcano

the view in another direction

you end up seeing Diamondhead from all over the bottom of the island

Keo lets his hair grow out

It's not the upload sound quality; you couldn't hear what she was saying.

she is also doing well

Vietnamese tea status, according to two experts

 

Steve of Viet Sun!

Seth and Huyen, visiting Bangkok

The tea industry in different countries in South East Asia can be dynamic, and Vietnam has a broader range of good tea to offer than any of its neighbors, except for China, and styles and higher quality levels seem to be developing there.

I asked two friends to share input on this.  Steve of Viet Sun is a main Western facing vendor, focusing on pu'er, or the local equivalent type.  Seth is a tea researcher, working on very developed writing on tea, along with Huyen, one of my favorite tea friends.  Seth is too; they're both great, and knowledgeable to a degree that's hard to relate to.

How does the perspective and demand on tea seem to be changing in Vietnam (by consumers)?

  

Steve:  I work mostly with old tree assamica teas (what many people in Vietnam call trà shan tuyết or shan, snow shan tea in English) as well as wild varietal non-sinensis teas so I’ll only speak on that segment of the industry. I see a lot of people getting into these types of tea, many just over the past few years. There are more and more tea shops opening and offering many styles of higher quality teas in bigger cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The demand is still quite low compared to green tea from Phú Thọ and Thái Nguyên provinces though. 

Many tea makers are experimenting with different styles. For example, you can go to villages in Cao Bồ, Hà Giang and find multiple teamakers who make halfway decent- good versions of many different tea styles, while 5 or so years ago it was difficult. Many producers see other producers making new styles of tea (raw puerh, black, white) and they start producing it themselves with varying degrees of success. 

An example of this is some time in the past couple years, a couple tea makers started making tea stuffed wild tangerine tea. Now many tea makers all over Hà Giang are making them. Many however, apply that higher volume “export tea” mindset into making these other styles and often fail to sell these teas due to competition from higher quality similarly priced options. 

Yt Y local area tea trees; photo credit to Steve

that tea, prepared as a tea cake, or bing

the right spelling (accent / diacritic)

Seth:  Matcha has exploded in popularity among the general public. Matcha products are now widely available in cafes all around Vietnam, and many tea factories have started producing matcha. This fits easily into the milk tea trend that started more than ten years ago. 

In terms of tea shops offering specialty teas or a general trend of specialty tea consumption in Vietnam, that is still only a small part of the overall market. Most locals middle aged or older drink green tea produced in Thai Nguyen, but there’s a rising demand for teas that use less industrial production techniques, which has created an opening for teas from Vietnamese heritage varietals like the various Assamica varietals locals call “Shan.” 

On the higher end, there are a lot more players in the market than there were ten years ago. These are mostly business people from Hanoi who see opportunities to invest in tea as a luxury product for higher income brackets in Vietnam. Some of the tea makers who focused on the Chinese market in the past have started expanding into the Vietnamese market since COVID forced them to look for new markets due to border closures. The shift to local markets seems to be enduring. There is also a rise in Chinese teas being sold in Vietnam, and some Vietnamese are making major investments in bringing Chinese tea to Vietnam, teas like Wuyishan wulong, Liubao, and Yunnanese teas. This is a small trend but seems to be prominent.

Editing input:  just a random tangent, but it's interesting that "oolong" always should have been "wulong," that the original transliteration was pretty far off (per my understanding, at least).  Now the right term depends on how you see language use conventions and transitions, and it really doesn't matter.

How is the industry changing in response to that, or do industry changes lead that other consumer perspective change?  Are producers exploring new styles, or is awareness of traditional tea styles broadening?

Steve:  The general attitude of many tea makers I know seems to be to focus more on higher quality tea or at least higher quality compared to the high volume “export grade” tea they were making for China. The Chinese tea industry seems to be quite unstable at the moment so many people are focusing their efforts locally as well as internationally in countries besides China. 

Seth:  Traditional tea styles in Vietnam are mostly dead or dying out. Most are extremely localized, within a few towns or districts, and they are not something that most Vietnamese people are even aware of, or would have an opportunity to try. In the specialty tea community in northern Vietnam, there is some interest in reviving tea production methods for Vietnamese yellow tea, which is made using an older technique for making Puer tea. Some are using this as material for making lotus tea, which is closet to the techniques that were used to make lotus tea about 100 years ago. 

The most popular traditional Vietnamese tea is still boiled fresh tea leaf. Locals will buy it at morning markets and drink it throughout the day. But this is mostly the older generation. The younger generation doesn’t tend to drink fresh tea leaves because there are lots of other beverages to choose from now. 

Editing input:  without some context it may seem like this input contradicts his last comments about people tending to drink Thai Nguyen green tea (sometimes branded as "fishhook" style).  Seth is surely aware of a range of very local tea styles that most of us will never hear about, even though I don't intend to add too much here to clarify what he really meant.  Western marketing tends to make it seem like there is really a much narrower subset of types out there than we see in online markets, even related to Chinese teas, which get the most exposure.

-are Facebook pages or online platform shops changing how tea is sold in Vietnam?

Steve:  Yes, many tea producers are on Facebook and many customers buy tea directly from them. Many tea shops have websites but they are often not updated. You usually have to contact them directly to see what their current offerings are.

Seth:  More rural tea makers are able to sell their teas directly to customers via Facebook. This offers the possibility of much higher income that they would make selling tea harvests to factories. However, the quality is not always consistent, and some of the tea can be quite rough, so Facebook marketplace doesn’t always translate to long term economic benefits for rural tea makers. In some cases, they wind up with bags of tea that they struggle to sell because of quality issues. Customers also have a higher risk of getting a product that isn’t satisfactory.

Editing input:  I've had very mixed experiences trying to buy tea locally, more in Thailand, but also from Vietnam.  Sometimes it works well, especially with others' help related to awareness of types and options, but you never see clear product listings, and issues like communication (language issues), money transfer, and shipping are all typically quite problematic.

-has foreign Western tea demand changed (consumer purchasing from outside of Vietnam)?

Steve:  I see interest in Vietnamese teas in the West growing year after year. Many people both tea business related and consumers travel to Vietnam to visit tea producing areas and tea shops in the cities. I don’t know exactly how other tea businesses are doing here but our sales have been growing gradually year after year.

Seth:  Changes in Chinese demand are pushing Vietnamese tea makers to look for new opportunities in the local market. The exact numbers are unclear.

The market for specialty Vietnamese tea is still miniscule outside of Vietnam, but awareness of Vietnamese tea is continuing to grow as tea enthusiasts introduce it more regularly to markets in the US, Europe, and Japan. Overall, this is still pretty small scale.

-can you add a little more about what is of interest to you related to Vietnamese tea experience or tea culture development?

Steve:  I really enjoy spending time in the tea mountains. The scenery is beautiful, there are many regional food and drink specialties and the culture of the different groups of people living in these areas is very interesting. Some tea areas have tea trees but there is little or no tea making happening there. Some areas just sell raw leaves to factories in other areas. I work with the local people and share what I know about tea processing and the tea industry in Vietnam. The state of protection of the tea trees is quite depressing in many tea areas here so It’s important to demonstrate the value and potential of what tea can provide with the people living there. 

I am currently focused on exploring new tea areas, learning more about tea production and the history of tea culture in Vietnam especially in the different tea producing areas. My favorite style of tea is raw puerh so I really enjoy getting to appreciate teas from many different terroirs in northern Vietnam. It’s also always fun to meet people interested in Vietnamese tea and share with them what I think are good examples of teas that represent the current state of tea in Vietnam. 

Seth:  There are more efforts now to create a unique Vietnamese tea identity by encouraging local ceramicists and potters to make tea ware, and locals tea enthusiasts are putting a lot of effort into spreading Vietnamese tea to an international audience, and pushing to improve the quality of Vietnamese tea products. 

Thoughts on this input

A Vietnamese tea friend, Huyen, who any longer term readers would be familiar with, just posted photos of a new tea shop in Hanoi (or a relatively new place; it could be an update about a renovation, or new space).  It's my understanding that shops are developing, especially in Hanoi, as mentioned in comments.  Huyen and her family (Tra Viet is a family business) sell a broad range of teas, of course, but they also focus on sharing demonstrations of traditional tea brewing practices, which are essentially the same as Gong Fu Cha, but surely also slightly different.

Huyen and her brother (her family is also great)

that shop, in Hanoi

It's a great time to explore Vietnamese teas, before that trend for higher demand catches up with expanding production supply, and costs rise.  

More basic range is also high in potential for exploration, so one might stay open to that side too.  That range isn't as widely available online as one might expect; Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Indian teas draw a lot of online focus, and Chinese and Japanese green teas are more popular.  It's kind of a shame, because even basic Thai Nguyen region "fishhook" style green tea can be nice (and I don't even love green tea), and higher quality, more novel types all the more so.

tea meetup with them in Bangkok