60: A tale of two trà cúc
A Hải Phòng special-tea, minus the tea
Welcome to my little dining out (or sometimes in) project. Its purpose is to get more acquainted with Vietnamese cuisine while I have the privilege of living in Vietnam. A tale of two… will see me try the same dish at two different restaurants. Trying something once is great, but two tries, hopefully in quick succession, should offer me (just slightly) more insight into the dish.
Whether it’s something I’ve had before or one that is brand new, my hope is that the small comparison will help me better understand the dish, what variations might exist, and what I generally think of it. I want to become less ignorant when writing about Vietnamese food and a less ignorant resident of Vietnam.
I am also a recovering picky eater and still on the journey of understanding what my more mature palate is. I hope this project will help with that, too.
Previous tales have been on phở; bánh cuốn; bún mọc; bánh mì chay; and xôi gà.
Happy Holidays! This month’s tale is going to be on the quick and dirty side because of how merrily distracted everyone is, but also because my original plan for this tale fell through. However, by using this tale to highlight trà cúc, a drink associated with the northern city of Hải Phòng, I can share how much I enjoyed my recent trip there.
Do you need to go to Hải Phòng? Maybe. Do you even know of Hải Phòng? You should, even just to have the quiz night answer of it being Vietnam’s third largest city — but it only has one quarter the population of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. The big city factoid is actually a primary reason for why I wanted to visit it.
When it comes to travelling, I am not a beach person. I am not a nature person. I am not an in-need-of-relaxation person. I like to spend hours pounding the pavement of a city, preferably large, to witness street life, observe faces, and take occasional breaks in art museums. Domestic travel while living in Vietnam has thus not been a great match for me. I was fully aware of that moving here and offer no apologies. So, despite Hải Phòng not really being that large of a city or much of a tourist destination, I wanted to go. Stories of the port city once being the domain of gangsters also made it intriguing.
Over the two years that I’ve lived here, I’ve also learned that it has many dishes worth trying, some unique to the city and some that are it doing its own Hải Phòng spin on dishes common to the North. The cuisine is not something promoted to attract foreigners — in fact my travel mate Brendan and I saw few to none beyond businessmen — but to domestic tourists. Many folks we spoke to in Hải Phòng nodded knowingly and said “food tour” when we relayed that trying the local dishes was part of our reason for coming. Whatever social media you prefer, a search will easily yield content of Vietnamese influencers sharing tastes of their Hải Phòng food tour.
I had roughly 36 hours to try what I wanted. A day trip from Hanoi could yield a good range. But truthfully, if you were going just to eat dishes and drinks that people highlight as special, three days would not be outrageous. It’s just you’d have to figure out what to do in the non-eating moments. You really only need a half-to-a-full day of pounding pavement to casually observe the city. That amount of time enables you to enjoy plenty in and around the central Lê Chân district. Walk-around-for-one-day-and-then-be-done (for my needs) was how I felt about Đà Lạt, too.
If variety is priority for a short visit to Hải Phòng, then you shouldn’t double up on any palate pleasure, even for the sake of a newsletter. But one specialty that was easy to try twice was trà cúc, a tea made from chrysanthemum flowers. The only information I can find about how it’s made, only through translating Vietnamese sites, is that it’s a herbal tea made from dried chrysanthemums that is then sweetened and flavoured with licorice (not sure what would be used for that flavour) and calamansi/kumquat.
I had it on my list of things to try because as someone who only partakes in a small amount of daily caffeine, I was buoyed by thoughts of a tasty herbal tea. But in a country where decaf coffee basically doesn’t exist and the majority of anything labelled as tea is caffeinated green or black, I knew to manage my expectations.
The chilly weather of our first day in the city led Brendan and I to a decision to stop for a cozy warm drink at a trà cúc shop once the sun went down. Caffeine be damned, I thought, as I wanted to try the tea. Because Brendan speaks Vietnamese, I asked him to see if trà cúc had caffeine. Yes, it does, because the initial herbal concoction is then blended with a black tea to result in the city’s specialty.
BUT. Our kind hostess explained it can be ordered “không trà” (without tea) and enjoyed as a decaf drink in the evening. She explained to Brendan how that’s normal and many people order it as such for something relaxing close to bedtime. Translating this article confirmed that it is indeed a regular thing that people do.
So, my Trà Cúc #1 (TC1) was a hot version at a rather swish spot that overlooked part of the Rế river. Given that it had no tea, it didn’t taste like tea at all. It reminded me of drinks like hot apple cider or mulled wine. It was very sweet but it was also quite bitter. I am not one for those aforementioned cold weather drinks, so I’d say as TC1 was like those for me, it wouldn’t be something I would order again. But it did a good job of warming me up.
Our mugs had some slices of calamansi and some slivers of what we thought were ginger but didn’t taste like it when we nibbled on it. Recipe research has me now thinking that they were slivers of jujube, which is sometimes part of the herbal mix.
I had added one trà cúc cafe to my Google Maps when prepping for the trip, and I think it was because it came recommended from a random source and was close to our hotels. It served as an easy destination to have some hydration the next day after a full afternoon of walking in (slightly) warmer weather. But finding a place to try trà cúc in Hải Phòng is almost as easy as trying to find a place to get coffee — you see it on a sign every couple of metres practically. Trà Cúc #2 (TC2) was on a street that seemed to have multiple cafés, suggesting it’s a popular strip to chill with a drink.
Brendan kindly asked again if không trà was an option there, which it was, and I got it iced this time. TC2 was sweeter and less bitter than TC1, and its hue suggests it was brewed according to a different recipe. I tend to have no issue with cold beverages that are sweet, especially when I’m thirsty, so I liked the iced version better. It was very refreshing. The citrus flavour from the calamansi was stronger than any herbal element it contained. So it was not (enjoyably) medicinal like another Vietnamese herbal drink I have enjoyed, nước sâm.
If you are interested in where I tried TC1 and TC2 while in Hải Phòng, the shop details will appear in next week’s HCMC Restaurant List update. The location and vibe of TC1 make it a worthy stop, and as I liked the iced version at TC2, I recommend both.
Have you been to Hải Phòng? What did you think?
