Thanh Chuong Tea Island

Green hills sit in the middle of a lake. They are not mountains and they are not fields. They are tea hills, and water surrounds every one of them. To get from one hill to the next, people take a boat.

That is Thanh Chương Tea Island, a farming landscape with a character all its own in Nghệ An. It now lies in Hoa Quân commune. Before the administrative changes of July 1, 2025, it was part of Thanh An commune, in the Thanh Chương area.

The tea plant is not what makes the island special, because tea grows in many places. What sets it apart is the way the water turns tea hills into islands. Cây Cau Lake covers 83 hectares. Together with the Cầu Cau dam, it surrounds more than 40 tea islands, large and small. Each island measures about 0.8 to 1 hectare. Across the whole area, tea covers more than 420 hectares, tended by nearly 200 households. These figures are not decoration. They are the livelihood of many families in the hill country of Nghệ An.

Seen from above, the terraced rows of tea curve along each hillside and look like fingerprints. It is a good comparison, because it captures how unusual the shape is. This is not one unbroken tea field like those of Mộc Châu or Thái Nguyên. It is separate islands, each with its own pattern of lines, all lying on the water.

Boats set out from the Cầu Rỏi landing. Motorboats thread between one green island and the next, and the water reflects the green of the tea and the color of the sky.

At one of the larger islands, the boat stops and visitors can step ashore and walk. Up close they can study the rows and learn how the villagers tend and pick the tea.

After that, there is a small hut beside the lake, with green tea to drink and local specialties to taste. Sitting still on the water, surrounded by green, a visitor feels the hours pass slowly.

Nghệ An Province ranks Thanh Chương Tea Island among its agricultural and rural ecotourism sites. That is an accurate way to place it. There is no museum here, no temple, no grand story from history. There is green, water, the sound of boats, the scent of tea, and the air of a hill region that still lives by the rhythm of farming.

The island is not a place to look at. It is a place to be inside for a while.