MUONG DO BIO-TEA PRODUCING GROUP

The Muong women from Muong Do village of Phu Yen were found poor and isolated until they received support from Center for Development and Integration, which taught them that they can produce organic tea from abundant ancient tea trees. In 2017, Bio-Tea Producing Group was set up with Mrs. Nu, a women leader in the commune. These Muong ethnic women hope to encourage others to use  sustainable traditional farming practices to produce high-quality tea.

The cooperative group members own around 3,000 ancient tea trees which yield around 4 tons of fresh tea per year. These trees thrive inbiodiverse, chemical free environments. In the beginning of the cooperative, the womendid not know how to process tea from teaplants, forcing them to sell fresh tea leaves,resulting in a loss of potential revenue due totheir lack of capacity. CDI initiated programsto support women groups in the area withfunding and support from IrishAid in 2017.

With thissupport,the cooperative was able to purchase tea processing machines, enablingthe members to create higher valued finished products, resulting inhigher incomes for the cooperative members. To develop capacity inmarketing and market promotion, CDI organized several marketaccess events to support the cooperative in Hanoi and in the Mekongregion. They were able to present their story in an internationalworkshop in Hanoi about women in entrepreneurship in the AsiaPacific. The group leader Mrs. Nu also participated in an exchangelearning program in Laos to present their product and learn about teaprocessing and labeling. There are three types of tea: yellow, green,and black. In 2018, the price of tea leaf is 15.000VND/kg which is anincrease of 3.000VND/kg compared to the previous year. Now withprocessed tea and packaged products, they can sell tea for 200,000vnd/kg, an increase of 20 times than before.