Vietnamese tea from Phú Thọ province has been getting an audience in Greece, thanks to a recent push by the province and the Vietnamese Embassy in Athens. The activities landed at two of the Greek capital's busiest food events — a reminder that Vietnam's culinary diplomacy is very much aimed at curious eaters as much as trade buyers.
The centrepiece was the Athens Coffee Festival, one of Greece's largest events devoted to tea and coffee. On September 27, Ambassador Phạm Thị Thu Hương met a visiting delegation from Phú Thọ, led by provincial People's Council Chairman Bùi Đức Hinh, as the province showcased its teas to Greek consumers and festival-goers. Phú Thọ, in northern Vietnam, is one of the country's major tea-growing regions, and it's also working to export other produce — jackfruit, pomelo, bananas and longan among them.
The embassy pairing goes beyond tea. A day earlier, on September 26, embassy staff ran a Vietnamese food stall at the Piraeus Gastronomy Festival 2026, its second year at the event. The stall sat alongside offerings from South Korea, the US, Panama, China and host Greece, and drew crowds with traditional dishes plus live demonstrations of fried spring rolls and Vietnamese steamed buns — the kind of hands-on cooking that tends to turn festival visitors into future travellers.
Talks between the ambassador and the delegation also covered longer-term cooperation: cultural heritage preservation, education, labour, logistics and agricultural trade, with the embassy positioning itself as the bridge between Vietnamese provinces and Greek partners.
For travellers, the story is a nudge in two directions. In Greece, both the Athens Coffee Festival and the Piraeus Gastronomy Festival are worth a look if you're in the capital in late September — you'll often find international food cultures represented alongside Greek coffee and street food. In Vietnam, Phú Thọ makes a compelling detour from Hanoi: it's an easy trip into the northern midlands, home to tea hills, the historic Hung Kings Temple complex at Việt Trì, and the UNESCO-listed Xuân Sơn National Park area. Tea is woven into daily life there, from fresh green tea served at roadside stops to family-run growers who will walk you through the leaves.
It's also a sign of Vietnam's growing food visibility in southern Europe. If you've sampled Vietnamese spring rolls at a Greek festival, a trip to the source — Hanoi's street-food scene, then the quieter tea country of Phú Thọ — is the natural next step.
