Herbal pillow - unique product of Dong Tien people

Members of Dong Tien Agricultural and Community Tourism Cooperative produce herbal pillows.

Receiving us in a spacious, airy stilt house, Ms. Hoang Thi Hang, Director of the Cooperative (HTX), shared: In 2023, during a visit to Thailand, I went to a pharmacy and saw them put dried and roasted plants in a bag and sell them to customers. I brought it up to my nose and smelled it and found it fragrant and pleasant. When I asked, I learned that these were medicinal plants that had the effect of relieving colds, reducing stress, fatigue and improving blood circulation.

I think, local medicinal plants are always available, why don't we take advantage of, exploit and process them into herbal pillow products like in other countries? - Ms. Hoang Thi Hang

After that, Ms. Hang went back to share with the people in the village about the Thai herbal pillow making method. Everyone thought that this was a very good method. If the people in the village knew how to exploit the advantages of local medicinal plants, the good products of ethnic minorities would spread to many people.

Based on that idea, in July 2024, Dong Tien Agricultural and Community Tourism Cooperative was established with 8 members. From the fact that people were only used to growing rice, corn, and raising poultry to serve their daily lives, up to now, the members of the cooperative have created unique local products.

Members of Dong Tien Agricultural and Community Tourism Cooperative exploit medicinal plants.

Ms. Hang told us that the most favorable thing when producing herbal pillows is that, in addition to the support and assistance from the district's professional agencies, the members of the cooperative basically know more or less about medicinal plants because they followed their parents and grandparents into the forest to recognize medicinal plants since childhood; they know how to make some remedies to treat diseases such as stomach, bones, joints, kidneys, etc. Therefore, when starting to combine medicinal plants to create herbal pillow products, it is not difficult for the cooperative members.

Ms. Dang Thi Phuong, Dao ethnic group, cooperative member : Before, I also knew about some medicinal plants and often went to the forest to pick them to make water to drink. That is why, when I joined the cooperative, my passion for these plants was rekindled.

Immediately after its establishment, the members together built a medicinal plant growing area of ​​nearly 1 hectare. Mainly plants such as mugwort, lemongrass, great compassion, basil, perilla... In addition, people also go to the forest to pick some plants such as passionflower, aromatic leaves... to make products with full ingredients.

Raw materials are not difficult to find, but to make herbal pillow products, it requires many stages. Among them, there is the stage of roasting, drying, and extracting the product's aroma. Due to lack of funds to invest in modern machinery and equipment, after harvesting and drying medicinal plants, the cooperative members have to bring them to a member's house to roast and dry them.

Members of Dong Tien Agricultural and Community Tourism Cooperative dry medicinal plants after harvesting.

After extracting the incense, the raw materials are put into pillowcases (brocade fabric, made in Hoa Binh province) and carefully sewn, with labels and QR codes attached to make it convenient for customers to look up product information.

Our feeling when holding the herbal pillow made by the ethnic people in Dong Tien is that the brocade fabric is hand-woven, decorated with many different patterns, quite eye-catching. Outside is a pillow bag also made from brocade fabric. The medicinal plants have a light, pleasant aroma.

Ms. Hoang Thi Trinh, Tay ethnic, member of Dong Tien Cooperative: After the herbal pillow products are carefully packaged, we bring them to the Cooperative's product display and introduction point on the Thai Nguyen - Cho Moi highway. Here, every time customers stop to rest, they buy pillows for their own use or as gifts for their relatives. Some customers use them once, see the effectiveness, and come back to buy them a second or third time.

Currently, on average, each month, Dong Tien Agricultural and Community Tourism Cooperative produces and sells about 200 herbal pillows to the market, with a selling price of 180,000 VND/piece. In order to spread the product further to customers, Ms. Hang told us: In the coming time, in addition to selling pillows, we will research and combine to develop more community tourism models, so that tourists can stay, rest, experience picking and distinguishing medicinal plants with ethnic minorities.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/kinh-te/202503/goi-thao-moc-san-pham-doc-dao-cua-nguoi-dong-tien-fb220d6/