Consort Dang Thi Hue

High on Sài Sơn mountain, at the mouth of a rock cave, a statue of green stone is said to sit quietly, looking out over the valley. The villagers around Thầy Pagoda say it shows a country lady, one whom everyone calls by three plain words, Bà Chúa Chè.

Bà Chúa Chè means the Tea Lady, and she earned the name because her whole life was bound up with green tea. Mention her, and people think of the sharp smell of tea leaves, and of a cup of tea still steaming on an early morning. Her real name was Đặng Thị Huệ.

The old tales say she was born into a poor, ordinary family in the Kinh Bắc region. As a child, she climbed the hills every day to pick tea leaves for a living. Her childhood was early mornings along the hillside, sunlight spread like gold over rows of low, deep green bushes, and hands that always smelled of young tea.

The girl who picked tea was poor, but she had something very precious. She did every task neatly, she was quick-witted, and she remembered whatever she learned. She greeted everyone politely and spoke softly, and her eyes were bright and fresh.

That good nature could not stay hidden. So the girl from the tea hill was taken into the lord's household to serve as a maid. From a windswept hillside she stepped into a very different world, with red towers, purple pavilions and a strict order of manners she had never known. Yet she was not lost. She worked hard and gave her whole heart, and little by little she won the respect of Lord Trịnh Sâm. He was one of the Trịnh lords, a noble family who dominated northern Vietnam.

In 1777, after she gave birth to a son, she was given the title Tuyên phi, a consort in the lord's household. It was a very long road, from a windswept tea hill to red towers and purple pavilions.

Even so, she never forgot where she came from. She still loved to drink green tea, the drink every country family knew. Perhaps that is why the people gave her the fond name Bà Chúa Chè, a name that recalls both her high rank and the tea hills of her poor youth.

Nor did she forget her village and its temples. Tradition says that in her lifetime she gave money to help the people of Sài Sơn restore Thầy Pagoda, an old pagoda set against the rocky mountain. Grateful for her help, the villagers carved a statue of green stone to honor her, right at the mouth of the cave on the mountain. It was their way of remembering her kindness for good.

That stone statue, so tradition says, is still there today, quiet on the flank of Sài Sơn mountain, where white clouds drift past.