Vietnamese Matcha: How Japanese Tea Tradition Took Root in the Mountains of Son La
More than twenty years ago, Japanese tea specialists came to Vietnam looking for the right landscape.
They needed somewhere cool, elevated and misty enough for Japanese tea varieties to grow well. Their search eventually led them more than 1,000 metres above sea level, into the mountains of Van Ho in Son La.
There, they found the conditions they had been searching for.
Today, long green rows of tea stretch across these Vietnamese highlands. Then, shortly before the spring harvest, something unusual happens.
The fields appear to turn black.
Vietnamese matcha is finely ground green tea cultivated and produced in Vietnam using shading, steaming and tencha production methods associated with Japanese matcha.
The matcha grown in Van Ho combines Japanese tea varieties and technical expertise with the distinctive climate, soil and landscape of northern Vietnam.
Vietnamese Matcha at a Glance
Origin: Van Ho, Son La, Vietnam
Altitude: More than 1,000 metres above sea level
Producer: Satoen Vietnam
Harvest: Spring, approximately March to April
Shading: Approximately 15–20 days before harvest
Processing: Steamed, dried into tencha and finely ground
Character: Smooth, gently sweet and vividly green
When the Tea Fields Go Dark
Approximately 15 to 20 days before harvest, workers cover the tea plants with black shading nets, shielding the young leaves from direct sunlight.
From a distance, entire sections of brilliant green tea fields appear to turn black.
The change is deliberate. Shading the plants before harvest is one of the defining stages of matcha production.
Beneath the nets, the tea leaves continue to grow in reduced light. This affects their colour and flavour, helping to produce the vivid green appearance and smoother character associated with matcha.
For Satoen’s Premium Matcha, the leaves are harvested during the spring season, around March and April.
Once they are picked, they must be processed quickly.
From the Mountains to the Factory
Natural oxidation begins soon after tea leaves are harvested. To preserve their fresh character, the leaves are transported promptly for processing.
At Van Ho, the journey is unusually short. Satoen’s factory is located in the same tea-growing area, allowing freshly harvested leaves to move quickly from the fields into production.
One of the first stages lasts only seconds.
The leaves are steamed for approximately 15 to 20 seconds. This halts oxidation and helps preserve their green colour and fresh character.
They are then cooled, cut and dried before the stems, veins and other unwanted material are separated from the leaf.
What remains is known as tencha.
The Tea Almost Nobody Sees
Most people who drink matcha will never see tencha.
It is the quiet middle chapter of the process: no longer a fresh leaf, but not yet the brilliant green powder most of us recognise.
Tencha is the processed tea material from which matcha is made. Unlike many other green teas, it is dried without being rolled before its stems and veins are removed.
Only then does the final transformation begin.
The prepared tencha enters specialised grinding equipment and is gradually reduced to an exceptionally fine powder.
According to Satoen, its finished matcha is ground to particles measuring approximately 10 to 15 microns.
To the eye, the structure of the original leaf has disappeared completely.
What emerges is intensely green, remarkably fine and ready to be whisked into water.
Matcha — grown and produced in Vietnam.
How Did Matcha Take Root in Vietnam?
Matcha is inseparable from Japanese tea culture.
Although powdered tea has earlier roots in China, the cultivation, processing and cultural traditions associated with matcha today were developed and refined in Japan.
Satoen Japan began exploring Vietnam more than two decades ago, searching for conditions suitable for cultivating Japanese tea varieties.
Van Ho offered the combination its specialists were looking for: elevations above 1,000 metres, a cooler highland climate, frequent mist and suitable soil.
Japanese tea varieties were established there, while cultivation and processing developed with Japanese technical knowledge and the involvement of experienced specialists from Satoen Japan.
Yet expertise can travel more easily than a landscape.
The rain falling on these fields is Vietnamese.
The mist settling over the mountains belongs to Son La.
The soil beneath the plants is the soil of Van Ho.
Every leaf used to produce this matcha begins its life here.
This is not Japanese matcha transplanted into a different package. It is Vietnamese matcha shaped by Japanese tea expertise.
How Does Vietnamese Matcha Differ from Japanese Matcha?
The clearest difference is origin.
Japanese matcha is grown and produced in Japan, where matcha cultivation and preparation are connected to centuries of specialised knowledge and cultural tradition.
Vietnamese matcha is grown and processed in Vietnam. Its production is newer and less standardised, and methods can vary considerably between producers.
Origin alone, however, does not determine quality.
The tea variety, growing conditions, harvest season, length of shading, processing method, grind, freshness and storage can all affect the colour, aroma, texture and flavour of finished matcha.
Satoen’s matcha is made in Vietnam from Japanese tea varieties using specialised production methods and technical knowledge associated with Japanese green tea.
The result has its own identity: not an imitation of Japanese origin, but matcha rooted in the landscape of Son La.
What Does Vietnamese Matcha Taste Like?
Satoen’s spring-harvest Premium Matcha has a vivid green appearance and a naturally smooth, gently sweet character.
Prepared with water, its fresh green flavour remains clear and distinctive. Whisking creates a fine layer of foam, while the finely ground powder gives the drink a fuller texture than ordinary infused green tea.
It can also be served over ice or combined with milk. Its smoothness and colour make it particularly well suited to a matcha latte without restricting it to milk-based drinks.
As with any matcha, the finished flavour depends partly on preparation. Water that is too hot can bring forward unnecessary bitterness, while careful whisking helps create a smoother, more evenly suspended drink.
From a Leaf to Something You Drink Whole
Prepare an ordinary loose-leaf green tea and the leaves remain behind once the infusion is finished.
Matcha is different.
The processed leaf has been transformed into powder. When matcha is sifted into a bowl, combined with water and whisked using a bamboo chasen, the fine particles become suspended throughout the drink.
Nothing needs to be removed.
The leaf that once grew beneath black nets on a mountainside in northern Vietnam is now part of the finished bowl.
That is why every stage — from cultivation and shading to steaming, drying and grinding — matters so much.
A Bowl of Matcha, a Vietnamese Mountain
Look at the finished bowl and there is no obvious sign of Van Ho.
You cannot see the mountains.
You cannot see the workers stretching black nets across the rows of tea.
You cannot see the spring harvest, the few seconds of steam or the dried tencha entering the grinders.
There is only green powder, water and foam.
Perhaps that is what makes its story so unexpected.
Tea has crossed borders for centuries. Plants travel. Techniques travel. Knowledge moves from one culture to another.
Here, Japanese tea knowledge travelled to the mountains of Vietnam.
But what grew from it belongs to the place where it was planted.
Vietnamese matcha does not need to pretend to come from Japan to be interesting.
Its story is interesting precisely because it does not.
It already has a place, a landscape and a story of its own.
Discover our Vietnamese Premium Matcha – Spring Harvest, grown and produced in Van Ho, Son La →