KOSALA. Vietnamese Teahouse. Không gian trà Việt. Thiền trà — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

wonderful experience! the owner took time to explain the tea production process to us, and offered to let us smell the different teas before we chose three types to try. he demonstrated the brewing process in detail, and it was incredibly fun trying it for ourselves. we were provided with complimentary sweets to pair with the tea - a mung bean cake for dragon bud white tea, dried persimmons for lotus tea, and a peanut candy for red tea.

highly recommend the dragon bud white tea - very fragrant, and leans towards a fruity scent. it’s very different from chinese white tea; do give it a try! the lotus tea had a very complex flavour that grew sweeter and more mellow across brews - this paired really well with the dried persimmon (which the shop currently doesn’t sell, and is made in-house).

after the tea tasting, the owner showed us the tea room at the top floor, where various teas were stored and aged. the scent was incredible.

this was a whole experience that we didn’t expect - we spent about 3h there and had only budgeted around an hour. you can really tell the owner’s enthusiasm about tea; as he said, tea is his life. the tea and tea accessories are also very fairly priced.

to top it off, the owner gave us unsolicited local food recs! we tried and they were excellent. we’ll definitely return to this tea house during our next trip to...

I have been coming here for 5 days straight now and am absolutely in love with this place! The owner has a wide range of pu erh tea, green tea and more! He’s particularly passionate about Vietnamese pu erh tea. Ensuring his clients gets the highest quality, he would visit the mountain to the tree in person and observe their practice, making sure there is no chemicals involved. When you purchase a tea, he will also send you a picture of the actual tree so you know where your tea is sourced. Most of his pu erh tea is sourced from old trees over different locations (over 250 years).

The owner, nhan is super welcoming and is also knowledgeable around tea from land to teapot. As a tea house owner, nothing goes to waste. With the left over tea leaves, he will dry them for a couple of days and turn them into fertiliser for plants as seen in the attached picture (plastic container pic). He is also particularly passionate about educating people on the differences in pu erh from a young or an old tree to how long it’s been aged for, to the process it gets created and how it determines the quality. If you ask him, he’ll give you tips on how to tell the differences.

I’m a practicing naturopath myself so I am very picky with choosing where I source my tea and I strive to continually learn more.

Thank you again for an amazing...

Visiting KOSALA, enjoying delicious teas and having a wonderful conversation with Mr Nhan was an unforgettable pleasure. The teahouse is beautifully designed, perfect in every detail. The collection of beautiful pottery is breathtaking. When you learn that it is all handmade by local masters, it is hard to believe. The tea collection is beyond imagination. The rarest, most special and unique teas, many of which can only be found in this teahouse. I tasted three of them, and although I have been a tea lover for more than a dozen years, I was truly amazed by the selection of teas. Excellent green and red teas, the highest quality Pu-Erh from old tea trees, and much more.

Mr Nhan himself is an incredible man. He is so dedicated, passionate and enthusiastic about tea and his business. We had the most interesting conversation for over an hour. To know that he travels to the mountainous tea plantations, selects the highest quality crop and brings new technologies to the remote rural tea producing areas is overwhelming.

All in all, it was the most memorable visit, and KOSALA is probably the best tea house in the country and...