Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative

Producer

Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative

Dans les forêts montagneuses du district de Nyot Ou au coeur de la Province de Phongsaly au Laos frontalière avec le Xishuangbanna en Chine

The Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative was set up in 2021 on the initiative of the French Lao NGO CCL (Comité de Coopération avec le Laos). It brings together producers from 4 Yao villages in the Nyot Ou district, in the heart of the mountain forests. They grow endemic wild tea bushes over 15 metres high alongside orchards of agroforestry tea bushes 8 years old and older. Women are heavily involved in the cooperative, making up 50% of the members and 40% of the management committee members.

Since 2010 the CCL has been supporting tea producers. Tea supplements traditional rice production. The creation of a processing plant and the acquisition of traditional know-how have been based on the development of the Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative with the assistance of Yubai and William Osmont.

"Before, people just picked tea leaves from the forest to exchange it for salt with the Leu people (living in the plain of Outaï, capital of Nyot Ou). We had no tea garden at all. I remember that I used to exchange a full bag of tea for a chicken."  Ms. Kuay, Ban Sehopene village

"The core objective of our cooperative is to produce and commercialize premium tea from the Nyot Ou terroir through the maintenance and development of agro-ecological practices aimed at increasing the incomes of tea-producing smallholder farmer families, their well-being and to ensure sustainable and ecological management of the resource.”  Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative statutes, February 2022

Photo crédits : CCL and Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative

Nyot Ou Tea Cooperative's teas

Nyot Ou forest white tea cake
Nyot Ou forest white tea cake
White tea, Laos
37,00 €
Pu er raw Sheng from Nyot Ou forest
Pu er raw Sheng from Nyot Ou forest
Dark tea, Laos
10,00 € /50g