On the morning of July 25, atop Ban Co peak on the Son Tra peninsula in Da Nang, a tea-tasting tour was unveiled. It's run by the Son Tra Peninsula and Da Nang Tourist Beaches Management Board, in partnership with Sương Mai Tea Thai Nguyen Joint Stock Company, a tea maker in Thai Nguyen Province. This lookout at roughly 700 meters became Da Nang's most famous peak after Bill Gates stopped by in March 2024. To a city with direct flights from Japan, a small-group experience open only in the early morning and evening has been added—but the price and booking channel haven't been announced as of now. To help you judge whether it fits your itinerary, we separate out what is and isn't known.
What was announced is a small-group tea session with time slots split up
According to the management board, this tea gathering was part of what Da Nang held from July 22 to 26, Enjoy Da Nang Festival 2026 It launched within that framework. The festival opened on the night of July 23 at Bien Dong Park, and this year Da Nang's tourism theme is set on the phrase 'touching the origin.' At the presentation held on the summit on the morning of the 25th, after greeting the sunrise there was a tea-opening ritual, followed by a demonstration of tea-brewing gestures, an introduction to Vietnam's traditional tea culture, and time to hear talks on tea and stillness.
Nguyen Duc Vu, head of the management board, says the tour receives guests in the early morning and evening and runs separately from normal viewing hours. "People who come at these two times can take in the sunrise and sunset in full. The summit at these hours is very quiet and calm, well suited to savoring tea and blending into nature." The chairman further said the aim isn't to gather large numbers,Quality of the experienceexplaining that it's tuned to, and keeping each session's numbers limited to preserve privacy, quiet and the level of hospitality. It didn't mention a specific cap.
Why bring tea to the summit—the per-visitor spending wall Da Nang faces
Da Nang's tourism is growing in the numbers. The city's lodgings took in just under 9.8 million people from January to June 2026, up 22.5% year on year. That breaks down to just under 5.2 million foreigners and over 4.6 million domestic visitors. Combined revenue from lodging, dining, and travel exceeded 34.7 trillion dong.
Even so, the local papers' tone leans toward length of stay and spend per visitor over headcount. In July, headlines lined up asking "how to get people to stay longer and spend more." At the root is a sense of crisis that sea, fireworks and eateries alone put a ceiling on per-person spending. The summit tea seat is placed as one answer to this wall. Limiting numbers, dividing time slots and bundling scenery with ritual is a design that only works if you raise the price per head.
The move to recast local resources as experience products continues in Da Nang. An example that staged national-treasure-grade Ngoc Linh ginseng as a festival in the city (Zero fakes promised: three days at Da Nang's first Ngoc Linh ginseng festival, a national treasure) and this tea session are close in concept. Rather than the raw material itself, they sell the setting in which the material is placed.
Da Nang tourism and Vietnamese tea, by the numbers
| Item | Figure | As of / source |
|---|---|---|
| Number of guests at Da Nang lodgings | Just under 9.8 million (up 22.5% year on year) | January–June 2026 / local papers reporting Da Nang city statistics |
| Of which foreign visitors | just under 5.2 million | Same as above |
| Of which, domestic visitors | Over 4.6 million | Same as above |
| Revenue from lodging, food and beverage, and travel | Over 34.7 trillion dong (about 214.2 billion yen) | January–June 2026 / converted at about 162 dong to the yen |
| Elevation of Ban Co summit | about 700 meters | About 10 km from central Da Nang |
| Vietnam's tea-growing area | about 128,000 hectares | Over 1 million tons of fresh leaves a year, about 214,000 tons in dried-tea terms |
| Average export price of Vietnamese tea | US$1,737 per ton (full-year 2025) / US$1,644 (January 2026) | VnEconomy. Around half the world average |
| Enjoy Da Nang Festival 2026 | July 22–26 | Opens the night of July 23 at Bien Dong Park |
Welcome and cynicism side by side: three angles -- the organizers, the producing companies, and the forums
First, the operator's side. As noted, board chairman Vu repeatedly explains that quiet and small groups are the selling point. Admitting people in divided time slots at a scenic spot under administrative management also overlaps with the intent to curb crowding on the Son Tra peninsula.
Next, the position of the production-area company it partnered with. Sương Mai Tea Thai Nguyen Joint Stock Company's home, Thai Nguyen, is a tea-growing area that represents Vietnam. In its plan for 2025 to 2030, the province sets a target of raising the total product value from tea to about 25 trillion dong by 2030 (about 154 billion yen at about 162 dong to the yen; local reporting also gives about US$1 billion). The setup of a northern production-area company traveling all the way to a central tourist site to hold a tea service is not the wholesale shelf butA point of direct contact with customers—shows they came for it. That said, no comment from the company appears in any of the coverage we could verify.
Third, the posts lined up on the Vietnamese forum VOZ. Cool reactions stand out, with jabs like whether a place becomes a product just because a celebrity sat there, and teasing about whether they'll market every spot other dignitaries have visited the same way. There were practical voices too: an account of once riding a motorbike up to the summit and getting a scare when the brakes overheated on the way down; a suggestion that placing wooden pavilions along the road would draw more people. It reads as a point that if you're going to sell the summit, sort out the road first.
What Japanese travelers and businesses can take from this
To start with the conclusion for travelers: it's too early to lock it into your itinerary for certain. What opened on July 25 was a launch event, and the path for the general public to sign up isn't out in the open. Projects that spring up alongside a festival split between becoming regular after the event and quietly disappearing. Whether the management board puts out prices and a booking contact from August on is the first fork. If you already plan to be in Da Nang, the realistic order is to ask your hotel concierge or the city tourist information about same-day availability.
Even if the summit is a bust, Da Nang's early morning has another use. Joining fishermen hauling a beach seine and slurping noodles right there (Hauling nets with fishermen in Da Nang at 5 a.m.: a summer of squid noodles eaten on the beach), needs almost no cost or reservation. The summit tea gathering and the beach net-hauling use the same dawn hour at completely different intensities. Which you choose comes down to what you want to bring home that morning.
From a business angle, there's something to learn from this design. Japan's tea industry, which has taken the matcha experience abroad, tends to direct investment toward how faithfully to reproduce the tea room and etiquette. The Ban Co summit plan built nothing and made the scenery and the time of day themselves the vessel. It's a model for capturing a high unit price without holding equipment, and the more a business is walled off by heavy up-front investment, the more worth considering it is. For anyone in food or beverage exports, the sequence of creating a point of contact where people drink at a scenic spot before securing retail shelf space also becomes an option. But since the counterpart is an administrative management committee, it's best to factor in from the start the chance that it ends as a one-off tied to the festival.
Fifth in the world by volume, half the global average by price—room for tea's supply chain to move
Vietnam's tea ranks among the world's top by volume. The growing area is about 128,000 hectares, annual fresh-leaf output tops 1 million tons, which converts to about 214,000 tons of dried tea, counting it as the world's fifth-largest producer. Yet the export unit price doesn't rise. The average export price for full-year 2025 was US$1,737 per ton, dropping to US$1,644 in January 2026. VnEconomy writes that this level is roughly half the world average.
Fifth in volume, but half the world-average unit price. This gap is at the root of why Thai Nguyen sets a $1 billion goal for tea. As long as it ships in bulk, the unit price hits a ceiling in the statistics. Tea served as a single cup at a summit barely registers in export statistics, but it's an experiment by the side trying to rebuild how prices are set. For Japanese importers and buyers, the time is coming to re-examine the premise that Vietnamese tea will stay a cheap raw material.
Practical information to nail down before you go
| Item | What's known at this point |
|---|---|
| Location | Ban Co summit on the Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang (about 700 meters elevation). About 10 km from the city center |
| Operating times | Two slots, early morning and evening, run separately from ordinary visiting hours (per the management board) |
| Fee | Not disclosed |
| Capacity | Only explained that numbers are limited per session. No specific figure has been published |
| Time required | Not disclosed |
| How to book and where | Not disclosed |
| Date and frequency | Reported as two daily slots timed to sunrise and sunset (Dân trí). The start date hasn't been disclosed. July 25 was the unveiling event |
| Host and operator | Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang Tourism Beach Management Board / Suong Mai Tea Thai Nguyen JSC |
| Tea varieties served | Not disclosed (a tea company from Thai Nguyen took part) |
| Getting to the summit | Steep grades and hairpins run continuously. Automatic scooters have had notices asking riders to refrain in the past; it's not a ban, but a geared two-wheeler, a small car, or a chartered vehicle is realistic |
| Related events | Enjoy Da Nang Festival 2026 (July 22–26) |
The many blanks in the table aren't oversights -- it's that neither prices nor booking contacts appear within what was reported. Ban Co summit itself has long been a viewpoint anyone can climb to, with a statue of immortals playing the board game Go at the top. Even if you can't join the tea session, nothing stops you from going up at sunrise.
Summary: until an announcement comes, keep it as a candidate for a "morning slot"
This tea service isn't a product you can count on being able to attend. There are three ways to play it. First, follow the Son Tra Peninsula and Da Nang Tourist Beaches Management Board's announcements from August on, and decide once prices and a booking channel are out. Second, if your Da Nang trip is already set, ask locally about same-day availability. Third, don't fixate on the peak—turn that dawn hour to another experience.
Air service from Japan to Da Nang is trending toward more flights (11 flights a week to Da Nang, Hanoi–Osaka doubles in December—Vietnam Airlines' Japan routes), the choice of how to spend one slot of the morning will come around many more times. Once the price is published, put it—including the cost of chartering a car to the summit as the real outlay—side by side with other morning options like the beach or the market. Compare it that way and you can gauge, before you even arrive, whether what you'd pay for the quiet is worth it to you.
Sources:Thanh Niên／Báo Đà Nẵng／Dân trí／Báo Văn hóa／Báo Đầu tư／Báo Chính phủ／VnEconomy／Thương hiệu & Công luận／Danang FantastiCity／VOZ／Bao Chinh phu (Thai Nguyen tea)
