Tea Processing 🍵

Volunteering with Baiyue Tribes - Traditions Experience

This program gives you the opportunity to discover fantastic mountain scenery over the whole area and practice indigenous knowledge of hill-tribes. You get to experience tea processing in the mountains of Baiyue tribes where tea grows "wild" and is harvested by the local people, then bring unique tea gifts back to your home.

In this program, you can join whenever you want. Because hosts have been able to work in 4 tea seasons annually to maintain livelihoods with smallholder tea farmers.

What the volunteer has to do?

20 hours per week of the following:

✔ Making Fermented Tea Products

✔ Making Traditional Paper from Bamboo Straw

✔ Kitchen Work & Cooking

✔ Assisting in Workshops

Requirements:

✔ Intermediate English

✔ Over 18 years old

✔ Accepts Solo & Couples

About the Program:

Our region is considered the homeland of Snow Shan tea, where the tea plant has its origins. There are still many mountains where tea grows "wild" and is harvested by people of the Baiyue tribes. This includes the Red Dzao, Tay, H'mong, Clao, La Chi and Nung people. These people live in small, peaceful villages in the upper mountains where they harvest and produce precious tea from generation to generation.
We are an official social enterprise located in the north of Vietnam which is established under Vietnam Enterprise Law and operate as a commercial organization but must commit to investing at least 51% of annual profit in registered social or environmental goals. Our enterprise commits to reinvest the entire profit generated to improve sustainable livelihood for tea farmers and indigenous knowledge conservation.

Tea house of Baiyue tribes is for the collaboration of open-minded individuals, groups in pursuit of the the truth and fascinating facts about the Baiyue tribes who hold numbers of wisdom indigenous knowledge and their land where the ancient tea plant has its origins. We partner with ethical, responsible organizations to protect the ancient Shan tea trees of Baiyue tribes that make our world so inspiring through the Baiyue Tea Society site.

Our mission is to inspire tea lovers to become advocates for our planet’s natural resources, cultural treasures and local communities through wild ancient tea mountain of Baiyue tribes. To tackle the deep-rooted issues and some of the most complex challenges that both our tribes and tea lovers on worldwide are facing through established the partnership between stakeholders.

As a volunteer in our program, you will have the opportunity to discover beautiful mountain sceneries and develop indigenous practices of the hill tribes. In addition, you may learn all the aspects necessary for starting a business of your own.

The design of our immersion program is to allow you an authentic, meaningful and inspiring experience. Over the course of the program, you will experience in a variety of tasks according to the needs of the season ;)

🫖 What Exactly Will You do as a Volunteer?

You will work at least 4-5 hours a day, 4 days a week.
The role you play will depends on the specialty of your skill set.

✔ Making fermented tea products (Bamboo Tube, Roasted Tea, Puerh Tea Cakes, Peony Tea, White Tea, Red Tea, etc..).
✔ Making traditional paper from bamboo straw.
✔ Kitchen Work and Cooking.
✔ Helping with events for visitors and field education workshops for local youth, etc.. or at a similar designated space (work with local tea start-ups, local YouTubers).
✔ Sometimes, you may be asked to assist in physical work, for example; tea picking..

✈️ Getting to the Tea House:

Arrive in Hanoi International Airport (HAN). Take taxi or public transportation into the city of Hanoi to arrive at Hanoi bus station. Take a bus from Hanoi to Ha Giang (7 hours ride). Obtain the phone number of the bus and send it to Mr. Tri Shan. He will call the bus driver to tell them how to bring you to Tea House of Baiyue Tribes. Every bus has their phone number on the front. Take a picture and send to Mr.Tri Shan on WhatsApp.

🏠 Accommodation:

• Private rooms or Shared rooms and bathrooms - males in a shared accommodation and females in another shared accommodation; furnished accommodations, including Wi-Fi, clean toilets and hot water.

• Sometimes due to the large number of volunteers, rooms are shared between males and females.

• We do ask that you help by keeping the space clean during your stay.

🕶️ Activities for Days Off:

• Hiking to Holy mountain of Red Dao
• Trekking around terraced fields (recognized as national heritage)
• Dong Van Karst Global Geopark Loop tour
• Researching in Nam Dan Old Stone Field
• Enjoy with Local Weekly Fair
• Join Shamanic, Ritual Events
• Shennong worship events

🍽️ Meals:

You get 3 daily meals a day in exchange for weekly volunteer hours (meals for vegetarians and vegans are available).

Drinking: with many different kinds of tea. The locals drink filter water not very often. They drink tea everyday, any time of the day with green tea, fresh leaves tea and for no specific reason.

⛅ Weather in Vietnam:

There is a dizzying mix of weather here, sometimes it is raining for a half of the month. The citizen of Yin and Yang philosophical concept, Therefore we believe that working in the rain can cause slippery surfaces and limited visibility and possibly cases of rheumatism disease. So we don't work outside on rainy days.

You should be aware beforehand that this is a rather rustic setting. During warmer seasons you should be prepared to see bugs around the yard (because they are our friends) and other various forms of wildlife have been known to pass through on occasion throughout the year. During the winter it can get quite chilly, Summer time is very hot and rain.

📆 Registration Dates:

Program Availability: All year long, because it is managed to work with four tea seasons per year to sustain livelihood jobs with smallholder tea farmers.

• Days off: 2 days per week.
• Minimum period for volunteering: 1 week (Preference is given to those who choose a longer period)

💳 Registration Fees: (Does not include HomeAwe Fees)

• 1 Week costs 750$
• 2 Week+ costs more 150$

These costs include food, equipment, training and supervision of volunteers.

📋 Registration Process:

You have to be a Premium OR an Ultimate HomeAwe+ Member!!

1. Sign up through the program's link down below - your details and answers to the questions will be reviewed and based on that, your acceptance will be determined. (It is preferable not to hesitate in providing clear and explicit answers to the questions without any sense of shyness. The clearer, more spontaneous and heartfelt your answers are, the higher the likelihood of your acceptance).
If we do not contact you within 2 weeks, it means that you have not been accepted.
If you are accepted, we will communicate with you via WhatsApp or email to arrange the payment of the registration fees to reserve your spot in the program.

2. Pay the registration fees of $350 to HomeAwe.

3. Have a personal interview with HomeAwe for introduction and further explanation of details.
+ In certain cases, an introductory interview with the HomeAwe team or program organizers will be scheduled to provide more detailed information about volunteering, confirm your acceptance and set a volunteering schedule. After the interview, your acceptance will be official 100%. If, for some reason, you are not accepted after the interview, the registration fee will be refunded on the same day.
Once you are officially accepted 100%, with or without an interview, there is no refund for the registration fees, even in case of an emergency. The fees will be retained until your participation in another program later on.

4. The host will communicate with you directly via WhatsApp or email to give you more information about the program, arrange your arrival day, to get to know you better and to inform you to which camp you are going to join.