In Vientiane, cafés abound, yet Lao tea is almost invisible. Coffee, introduced by the French in the early 20th century, dominates the menu, while the tea tree — native to Laos and thriving in its forests for millennia — has never anchored an urban tea culture. Ask for tea in the capital or in Pakse, and you are more likely to be served Thai iced tea or bubble tea than a brew from Lao forests.

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In the highlands, however, tea is still prepared as it has been for generations: a handful of leaves dropped into a glass, doused with hot water, and slowly unfurling as you sip. Here, in the forests of the Southeast Asian Massif, ancient tea trees rise tall and untamed, some hundreds of years old. For upland communities such as the Akha, Hmong, Yao, Lahu, and Phunoi, tea has long been part of livelihood and ritual, woven into farming systems and daily life.

 

Today, tea remains a vital source of income for many families, especially as Chinese markets have rediscovered the value of old forest trees. Each province tells its own story of tea, shaped by climate, soil, and tradition: Phongsaly’s misty mountains in the north, Xiengkhouang’s pine-covered peaks, or the volcanic plateau of Paksong in the south.

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This series of photographs, commissioned in 2022 by the Comité de Coopération avec Laos (CCL) for the Tea Terroir project, was first presented through the photobook A Journey of Tea Cultivation in Laos and an exhibition of the same name. It offers a glimpse into the people, landscapes, and plants that keep the unique terroirs of Lao tea alive.