Born in the land considered the rice granary of Thanh Hoa, after many years of hard work, Ms. Ngo Thi Tuong (63 years old, in Minh Khoi commune, Nong Cong district, Thanh Hoa province) thought about giving up her fields many times.
She said that in 2018, her son, an agricultural engineer, gave her 10kg of purple rice seeds. The first time she saw the strange rice variety, Ms. Tuong did not eat it but instead planted it on her family's 5 sao of rice fields for testing.
Mrs. Tuong succeeded thanks to the gift of rice seeds from her son (Photo: Hanh Linh).
When it was time to harvest, Mrs. Tuong was extremely surprised. The rice grew well in the right soil and climate, and she had a bumper crop.
Through research, Ms. Tuong knew that this rice variety had more economic value than regular rice varieties, so she sold it. However, because it was a rice variety that was not trusted by local people, few people bought the products.
Mr. Do Quang Trung, Mrs. Tuong's son, next to his family's purple rice model (Photo: Hanh Linh).
After 2 years of growing rice but the sales were slow, the purple rice was piled up in the warehouse, not wanting to throw it away, Mrs. Tuong shared it with her brothers and neighbors. Many people brought it home to use and were surprised by the quality of this type of rice.
"Everyone who ate it praised the delicious rice. The roasted rice made a very fragrant and refreshing drink," said Ms. Tuong.
A woman in her 70s was surprised by a gift of 10kg of rice from her son (Video: Hanh Linh).
From everyone's reviews, Ms. Tuong came up with the idea of making tea from purple rice. In 2021, she started roasting the first batches of purple rice to make tea. This time, luck smiled on her when the purple rice tea product was popular in the market, Ms. Tuong continuously received orders.
Purple rice is said to be good for health, especially for dieters (Photo: Hanh Linh).
Every day, Mrs. Tuong wakes up early to roast rice, bag it, vacuum it, and stack it according to customer requirements. Besides making tea, she also distributes other products made from purple rice to the market such as black purple rice (black brown rice), red purple rice (red brown rice)...
For brown rice tea, Ms. Tuong said that to keep the purple rice's natural color and nutrients, she only mills the rice once, then sifts to remove broken, small, and substandard grains before putting them in the pan to roast.
"To have a natural aroma, rice must be roasted manually, over low heat, and stirred evenly. After roasting, the rice must be cooled before being packaged, and preservatives must not be used," Ms. Tuong shared.
Ms. Tuong's facility creates regular jobs for 2-3 local workers (Photo: Hanh Linh).
According to Ms. Tuong, her facility’s brown rice tea is priced at 40,000 VND/kg for purple and red brown tea; plain brown rice tea is priced at 50,000 VND/kg. Currently, Ms. Tuong earns 200-300 million VND per year.
Not only enriching herself, Ms. Tuong's tea production facility also creates regular jobs for 2-3 workers and 5-6 local women working seasonally, with wages of about 300,000 VND/day.
According to Ms. Tuong, her brown rice tea products are being distributed to many agents in and outside the province. Ms. Tuong is focusing on connecting and linking with companies to export brown rice tea to the Japanese and Korean markets.
Ms. Tuong (right) is introducing her new rice tea sample to customers (Photo: Hanh Linh).
Mr. Le Dinh Khai, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Minh Khoi Commune, Nong Cong District, said that Ms. Tuong's purple rice product was recognized as a 3-star OCOP product of Thanh Hoa province.
According to Mr. Khai, from the initial area of 0.5 hectares, his family has now expanded the purple rice growing model to 12 hectares, guiding 8 more households to participate in organic purple rice growing. With 12 hectares of purple rice, the yield is more than 20 tons/year.
"The selling price of purple rice is much higher than other types of rice. Mrs. Tuong's family buys rice from 8 households. Products made from purple rice are always "out of stock". There are times when the family has to hire people to work all night to send the goods on time," Mr. Khai added.
Source link
Comment (0)