West Lake Lotus Tea

A West Lake lotus in full bloom is about the size of two adult hands spread wide. Its pink petals lie one layer over another, about a hundred in a single flower. Yet what the tea makers of Quảng An look for inside that flower is surprisingly small. On the tip of each golden stamen sit tiny grains the color of ivory. The tea makers liken these grains to the flower's pouches of scent, and they call them gạo sen, lotus rice.

To scent one kilogram of tea the old way, the tea makers need a thousand lotus flowers, sometimes even more. A kilogram of dry tea weighs only about as much as a bag of sugar from the market. From each flower, they need just one tiny pinch of lotus rice. To reach it, they must first peel away about a hundred petals. So in lotus season, every morning, peeled petals turn a whole corner of each tea maker's house pink.

The tea makers are very particular about their lotus. The finest batches must be scented with Bách Diệp lotus from the ponds of the old village of Quảng Bá. That village lay in Quảng An, on the shore of West Lake. This is a major lotus-growing area of Hanoi, and the craft of scenting tea with lotus began right here. When it was called the hamlet of Mẩu, this land was just a small mound jutting into the lake, ringed by marshes and ponds. An old folk verse shows off its lotus: There, they have gold. Here, we have black bronze. There, they have thiên lý flowers. Here, we have the lotus of West Lake.

Before sunrise, the pickers are already out on the ponds, because that is when the scent is strongest. They paddle small boats through the green lotus leaves. For people in the craft, each picking is a race against the sun to hold on to the scent.

They do not pick every flower. They choose only buds that have just begun to open, petals still half closed, like lips pressed over a smile. Once a flower opens wide, its scent has already gone off on the wind. All the way back, the pickers keep the flowers dry, so no water touches the lotus rice. As the sun comes up, the boats reach the shore.

The tea makers judge day by day how many flowers will be enough. In June, the lotus gives the most rice. In July, or on days of fierce sun, they must add more flowers. When the weather changes even a little, the scent of the lotus changes with it.

Next, the lotus rice must be gathered, and that takes hands both quick and skillful. The whole household sits together, peeling back the petals layer by layer to bare the golden stamens in the middle. They separate the rice from the stamen tips with a light touch, so the tiny grains do not break and the scent is not lost. Some families work right on the bank of the pond, in the shade, every pair of hands moving fast.

In many tea-making homes, the grandmothers and mothers do the main work. The craft passes to daughters, daughters-in-law, and then granddaughters. The children of the house may also sit beside their grandmothers and mothers and help with light tasks. The tasks are light, but they call for sharp eyes.

Many people believe that whoever scents lotus tea must keep a calm heart, and that someone in a bad mood should not sit down to the work. Some in the craft go further. A hot-tempered person easily bruises the flowers, they say, while hands that are too slow let the lotus rice dry out. In their view, the peeling and the separating should be done in perfect quiet.

Then they sift and winnow the rice, clearing out stray bits of stamen and petal. They never make the lotus rice wait, because the sooner it meets the tea, the more scent it keeps. The tea is already waiting: a fine dry green tea from the tea hills of the north.

Before adding the rice, some families first layer the tea with the small inner petals of the flower: a layer of tea, then a layer of petals. They use not a single drop of water, yet they still call this washing the tea.

To scent the tea, the grandmother spreads a layer of tea in the bottom of an aluminum pot and sprinkles a layer of lotus rice on top. Then another layer of tea, another layer of rice, and so on. When the layers are done, she fits the lid on tight. For several days the tea holds the rice in its mouth, as the tea makers say, drinking in all its scent and growing moist again. Then she sifts out the spent rice, and only then is the tea dried.

A batch turns out good or poor in the drying, so in each house only someone with long years in the craft is trusted with it. Every family keeps its way of drying a secret from outsiders.

In the old days, the tea was spread on copper trays over charcoal. A moment of carelessness, and it would burn. If the fire was too weak, it would take on a smoky smell. Later came drying with hot water. The tea was wrapped tightly in paper and packed around a jar of hot water. Then everything went into a box wrapped in a cotton quilt, to lie warm through the night. Today, some families use electric dryers. Once the tea is dry, the grandmother wraps it in paper again to keep in the scent.

The next round of scenting needs fresh lotus rice. So once again the boats go out before daylight, fresh rice is laid into the tea, and the tea is sifted and dried. Some families go through this a full seven times. The thousand flowers for one kilogram of tea do not come from a single morning. The pickers gather them over many mornings.

In Quảng An, the elders still say that the village craft goes back a very long time. Lotus tea was once presented to emperors and lords, and to court officials. Today, many Hanoi families still give lotus tea as a gift at the Lunar New Year. In 2024, the Quảng An craft of scenting tea with lotus was added to Vietnam's national list of intangible cultural heritage.

In a pot of lotus tea, the tea makers do not all agree on who is the host and who is the guest. One family treats the tea as the host and the lotus as the guest, and keeps the lotus scent faint. Another treats the lotus as the host and the tea as the guest, and lets the scent run deep.

The elders of long ago also had a simpler way. They tucked a little tea into the heart of a lotus flower, tied the petals closed, and let the flower hold the tea for a whole night. Today, many families also scent tea inside the flower, with a little more care. The maker gently parts the petals without breaking them and sets the tea in the middle. The petals are smoothed closed, tied with a strip of bamboo softened in water, and wrapped in a lotus leaf. This way is faster and cheaper, but the scent does not linger as long as in tea that has held lotus rice through many rounds.

After the final round, the grandmother sifts the lotus rice out of that kilogram of tea one last time. A thousand lotus flowers have left not one grain of rice in the tea. They have left only their scent.

Only when an honored guest comes do the grown-ups bring out the lotus tea. They brew it very light, so the scent of the lotus comes through. The tea is crystal clear, green with a glint of gold. Counted this way, each pot the host pours for a guest offers the scent of about ten lotus flowers.