Every summer, when the lotus blooms, the family of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dan in To Ngoc Van street (Tay Ho district, Hanoi) prepares to make traditional lotus tea. Her family has a tradition of more than 70 years in this work. Ms. Dan said that to make 1kg of delicious lotus tea, people pick budding lotus flowers Then separate the stamens (also known as lotus rice) to marinate with the most special tea of ​​Thai Nguyen. Taking lotus rice is the most difficult stage, the artisan must be skillful with his eyes so that the rice is not crushed, keeping the characteristic aroma of lotus. After mixing lotus rice with tea, people marinate it, then dry it and marinate it a second time. In order for the lotus flavor to penetrate deeply into each tea bud, the stages of marinating and drying are repeated up to 7 times. This is the reason why West Lake lotus tea is classified as the most expensive tea. Currently, the original lotus tea made from West Lake lotus costs about 10 million VND/kg. Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy – Dan’s granddaughter-in-law shared, since coming back to be a bride, she was instructed by Mrs. Dan to make lotus tea in a very meticulous way, a feat, requiring very careful study, hard work, to produce special and premium lotus tea products. Each kilogram of tea requires 2 ounces of lotus rice from about 1,000 lotus flowers to marinate. There is no other type of lotus that makes tea as delicious as the West Lake lotus. Only the lotus flowers picked from West Lake can produce such a gentle but deep aroma. However, the lotus area in West Lake is not much, so Dan’s family had to order separately in other places many months ago. In order to have enough lotus to use to marinate tea, Ms. Dan’s family can only make about 5-6kg of this special lotus tea each season because of its sophistication, and only for regular customers. In addition to the premium tea priced at tens of millions of dollars, in recent years, people living around the West Lake area also make “steamed tea”, which is a type of tea that is marinated directly in fresh lotus flowers. The way to make this tea is quite simple, put a small handful of tea in a newly blooming lotus, then tie it, continue to put the lotus flower in water for 2 days, then put it in the refrigerator for 1 day and then wrap the leaves. lotus leaves in the freezer for later use. The advantage of this tea is that it has a reasonable price, you only need to spend from 30,000 – 50,000 VND to get a lotus marinated in tea, when making tea, you still feel the fragrant West Lake lotus flavor every time. Bring the cup of tea to your mouth. For Quang An people, making tea is not necessarily for a living, but they want to preserve a subtle culture of Hanoi people.

The poor forest in Hung Hoa commune has an area of ​​about 63 ha, stretching from the end of Hoa Lam hamlet (old) to Chin sluice gate on the side of the road along Lam River. In addition to the function of protecting dykes against mangrove and erosion, Hung Hoa poor forest is also a rich forest with ecological diversity, home to many kinds of delicious wild seafood such as fish, shrimp, plant, … Taking advantage of the low tide every day, people in suburban Vinh communes such as Hung Hoa, Hung Loc …, of which the majority are children from 10 to 15 years old, often gather in groups to hunt for plows and trees. decent income every day. The civet is quite similar to crab, also has 8 legs 2 claws, but the stem has flowers and hairy legs, or lives in brackish water. The plowing season usually starts from April to September each year. Taking advantage of the time off school, the kids in Vinh city go hunting for plows. A characteristic of the civet is that the bigger the sun is, the more the cow can find food … But catching up is not easy either, because they are very fast, if they are motivated, they run away. Therefore, the hunter must also be quick to catch. Nguyen Thi Trang (Hung Hoa commune) said: “Taking advantage of the time off school, I and my friends go through the mud to hunt for plowshares. The timing of hunting for plows is usually not fixed because it depends on the tide of up and down, due to the muddy wading, so when hunting, you must prepare enough boots, protective gloves, when wading in mud, you must be careful ” On average, each day, children like Trang can catch 2 – 3kg of cotton, selling for 70,000 – 80,000 VND / kg. Cay is one of the very popular specialties that can be processed into many delicious dishes. The joy of “anglers” when hunting plows.

The real Korean New Year is also one of the major Tet holidays of Vietnam, especially for the people in the North. Traditionally, on this day, people would eat cold dishes (“real welding” means “cold food”). And floating cake, vegetarian cake is an indispensable dish.

Among the floating cakes and vegetarian cakes, perhaps the Sau Sau shop on Ngo Thi Nham street is one of the places that attracts the most buyers. Part because it is in the center, partly because the quality of the cake here has been verified over many years.

This morning (March 3 of lunar calendar), not out of prediction, was only from 7:00 am to 8:00 am, but customers lined up to buy it. To be able to have enough cakes to sell, this tea shop also arranged “team” to make cakes right “at the match”. The person kneading the cake always, the person boiled the cake and picked it up continuously, the customers also went in and out.

The real Korean New Year, the streets of Hanoi also seem more bustling than usual. Everyone has to try to buy with a plate of floating cakes, a bowl of vegetarian cake to eat in this day, otherwise there will be something missing. And the images of baking, then queuing to buy cakes have become one of the typical cultural features of Hanoi in this day, every year there is no shortage of them immediately.

As noted, the shopping atmosphere at the local markets is much more bustling than this day. The owners said that the customers went to buy vegetarian cakes from early. Therefore, most of the shops have to prepare, even stay up at night to make a large quantity in advance to sell to customers.

Many consumers line up to buy floating cakes, vegetarian cakes for the real Korean New Year.

The batches of floating cakes – vegetarian cakes are neatly cut into plates and sold to customers.

At the vegetarian cake shop, the housewives hurriedly buy the goods, making the atmosphere very exciting. Every row of floating cakes must have 2-3 people to serve. Prices floating cakes, vegetarian cakes today are still the same price compared to normal days.

A plate of floating cakes costs 7,000-10,000 VND. A vegetarian cake is about 10 to 15 thousand dong more expensive, depending on the size of the plate. In addition to buying floating cakes and boiled vegetarian cakes, many housewives also buy ready-made cake dough to go home to cook for themselves.

At popular markets, the number of customers coming to buy is not too crowded, but the stalls selling floating cakes and vegetarian cakes are continuously molded to provide goods because online orders are still coming back.

In addition to selling floating cakes, ready-made vegetarian cakes, consumers can also buy floating cake dough and ready-made ingredients.

In addition to the traditional white flour, there are also five-color vegetarian cake dough.

Floating cakes are sold in combo, two trays have a preferential price of 15,000 VND and buy a single tray with the price of 10,000 VND.

Thanh Ha, 30 years old in Nguyen Trai, shared: “We have to take advantage of our free time and run right away to go to the market to buy things for the offering tray. This morning I still had to work at the company, so I got up early to buy 5 plates of floating cakes, go vegetarian, buy a chicken, some fresh fruit and gold money for my mother-in-law at home to make a tray of rice to worship our ancestors today. Today, even though it is the real Korean New Year, the food prices have not increased so it’s easy to buy.

Women who do not have time to make dough can also quickly buy a box of fresh glutinous rice flour to make cakes and vegetarian cakes. These flour packages include all ingredients such as flour, sugar, green bean paste, sesame, grated coconut, canned five-color cake … Offering family offerings.

The ingredients are fully sold for home-home buyers.

The batches of cakes are continuously made evenly by the small trader to provide for customers.

Not only at local markets, but also shops must quickly and quickly close applications and sell them to customers continuously.

This year, many housewives prefer to order online at home instead of going to the store to buy.

According to Ms. Hoang Lan, owner of a floating cake shop, vegetarian cakes shared: “In addition to selling floating cakes, vegetarian cakes, my family also sells five-color cakes, and su Su cakes to serve the needs of customers.

I only sell for 3 days, starting from the 1st to the 3rd of the 3rd lunar month. The total amount of flour for baking and selling in 3 days is up to 5 quintals. In which, 3 weights for me to mold the cake to sell, and about 2 weights of flour to sell to customers to make by themselves. Because the amount of cake sold is too much, it is impossible to count how many plates, we only know that this season, we make 0.5 tons of cake dough.

Vegetarian cake floating cake costs 10,000 VND / box, Choux pastry is 20,000 VND / box. On the days close to the Korean New Year, due to the sudden increase in the number of visitors, I have to mobilize my husband, children and brothers to help grind the flour, divide the flour, pack, mold, boil the cake to deliver it to customers in time “.

In addition to floating cakes, the shops also sell five-color chayote cakes at the price of 20,000 VND / tray.

Five colors sticky rice has the same price as 10,000 VND / tray.

Floating cakes, vegetarian cakes today are more diverse in colors. Not only is the traditional white color but also purple, green from pineapple leaves, red from Gac, yellow from gardenia.

Green bean cake beautifully shaped, selling price 10,000 VND / tray.

Vegetarian Banh Bao is available for 80,000 VND / big bag, or for retail for 2,000 VND / piece.