Not only is he attached to the cause of growing people in the mountainous areas of Da Nang, teacher Le Anh Tu is also a pioneer in starting a business from tea plants...
"Favorable fate" with difficult land
Born and raised in Anh Son district (Nghe An), but teacher Le Anh Tu (born in 1979) chose Hoa Bac land (Hoa Vang district, Da Nang city) to settle down and make a living. In 1998, after graduating from the University of Education (Da Nang University), Mr. Tu volunteered to go to Hoa Bac commune to teach.
At that time, volunteering to teach in Hoa Bac commune was rare. This is the land where many Co Tu ethnic people live. At this time, roads were difficult to travel and the economy was not yet developed, so there were very few teachers applying to teach here.
Mr. Tu is assigned to teach Physical Education at the Nam My village school of Hoa Bac Primary School. It seemed that difficulties would discourage the young teacher, but Teacher Tu overcame all difficulties and "fell in love" with this difficult land.
After 25 years of being attached to the land of Hoa Bac, Mr. Tu has contributed to helping students improve their physical health. At the same time, Mr. Tu also discovered and trained many students to participate in sports and achieve high results.
Typically, Nguyen Thuy Trang (Nam Yen village, Hoa Bac commune) has been trained in swimming skills and won a Silver Medal at the city-level swimming competition in 2004 - 2005. In 2008, Mr. Tu coached Trained Bui Van Phuong and Bui Van Tuan (Gian Bi village) to win city-level Gold Medals also in this subject.
“When I came home to take my children to swimming training, I was invited by their families to drink water. At first I thought it was a normal green tea, but when I drank it, it tasted bitter and then sweet and especially fragrant. At this time, I was introduced to everyone that this was a type of tea tree, a type of forest leaf that grew quite a lot in the mountains at that time. The Co Tu people choose to use sweet soup to cook water to drink to help them sleep," Mr. Tu shared.
After that, Mr. Tu cherished and began to learn how to grow and care for this special plant for a long time. When he had all the knowledge and planting methods, Mr. Tu discussed his ideas with his wife and planned to start a business to develop the economy.
“In 2015, I started cultivating on an area of 100 m2, but then it failed. By 2019, in Dong Giang district there was a tea tree nursery organized by the University of Agriculture and Forestry - Hue University. I packed my bags and went there to learn in-depth techniques on growing and caring for and processing tea plants.
At this time, my wife and I started to put together all our savings and borrowed 350 million from family members to start building a tea garden on an area of 1 hectare. The project is supported by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Hoa Vang district and the Department of Science and Technology of Da Nang City with an investment capital of 100 million VND," said Mr. Tu.
Teacher Tu recalls: "When I first started my business, I encountered many difficulties. Sometimes the trees were lush and healthy, but other times they were damaged. Sometimes there is a drought so the trees die, other times the rain floods and rocks cover the trees. The couple came back from teaching and rushed to clean up to replant, which was very hard."
Sweet fruit of effort
Despite difficulties in the early days of starting their business, Mr. Tu and his wife still decided not to give up. Taking advantage of his free time after teaching, the teacher went to the fields to improve the land, renovate the garden, rent a bulldozer to create a level surface, build concrete pillars and weave solid steel mesh trellises for the tea plants to cling to and grow. Along with that, Mr. Tu improved the automatic watering system to help the plants grow. And then near the end of 2020, the tea tree began to harvest.
According to Mr. Tu, after being harvested, the tea tree will be processed and cut into small pieces. Then it will be burned on the wood stove. With 16kg of fresh tea, after roasting, you will get 4kg of dry tea, with a value of 180 thousand VND/kg. When the tea is finished roasting, the tea will be left to cool and incubated for another 12 hours, followed by drying in the sun for about 3 hours and the final step is packaging.
“The special thing about this type of tea is its medicinal properties, which help treat stomach diseases and help improve sleep. When picking, pick the young leaves and stems for the highest medicinal properties. After roasting and drying the tea, there will be a white layer covering the surface of the tea. This is tea powder with highly medicinal properties. That's why green tea products are popular with many people, the main consumer market is the Northern region," Mr. Tu added.
Up to now, Mr. Tu's tea garden of more than 1 hectare has developed well and produced high yields. Every 45 days, Teacher Tu will harvest tea once, each harvest will produce about 350kg of dry tea. Each year, harvesting nearly 15 quintals of tea, after deducting all expenses, Mr. Tu's family earns a profit of more than 150 million VND. Not only does it bring high economic value products, Mr. Tu's tea garden also creates jobs for 8 local people.
"In the near future, my husband and I plan to expand the size of the tea garden to 2 hectares to have enough supply for the market, along with creating more jobs for people, helping to stabilize the economy," Mr. Tu said. confide.
Ms. Le Thi Thu Ha - Party Secretary of Hoa Bac Commune said that Mr. Le Anh Tu and his wife are a typical example of the commune in the process of local economic development. "Master Tu's tea product is one of the two OCOP products (one commune one product program - PV) of Hoa Bac commune. Not only that, this economic model has created jobs for many people in Hoa Bac commune. local. Help develop the family economy and develop the local economy. A good and creative model, helping to escape poverty sustainably," Ms. Ha said.
(Source: Education & Times Newspaper)
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