Strawberries, Artichokes, and the Highland Farms That Feed Vietnam

Da Lat sits at around 1,500 metres above sea level, which makes it cold enough, by Vietnamese standards, to grow things that simply won't survive in the lowlands. That altitude is the reason you find strawberries at Saigon supermarkets, artichoke tea in Hanoi cafes, and "rau Da Lat" — Da Lat vegetables — called out by name on menus across the country as a quality signal.

How Da Lat Became Vietnam's Berry Capital

The French planted the seeds for this, literally. When colonial administrators developed Da Lat as a hill-station retreat in the early twentieth century, they brought temperate-climate crops with them — strawberries, artichokes, cauliflower, carrots. The cool plateau turned out to be ideal. After reunification and particularly through the agricultural reforms of the late 1980s, smallholder farming around Da Lat expanded fast. Families in the villages of Thai Phien, Van Thanh, and Xuan Thanh converted hillside plots into polytunnel operations, and the city's reputation as Vietnam (베트남 / 越南 / ベトナム)'s vegetable garden was locked in.

Today Da Lat (달랏 / 大叻 / ダラット) and the surrounding Lam Dong province supply an estimated 60 to 70 percent of Vietnam's domestically grown vegetables. Strawberries are the headline crop for tourists, but artichokes — "atiso" in Vietnamese — are arguably the more economically significant one, driving a substantial dried-flower and herbal-tea trade that ships nationwide.

The Strawberry Farms

Most of the u-pick strawberry operations sit along the roads between Da Lat city centre and the suburb of Cu Lan, roughly 8 to 12 km out, or up toward Lang Biang mountain. The farming model is simple: pay an entry fee (typically 30,000 to 50,000 VND per person), pick your own fruit, and pay by weight for whatever you take home — usually around 120,000 to 180,000 VND per kilogram, depending on variety and season.

The peak harvest window runs from December through April. Come in rainy season and you'll still find farms operating, but the berries are fewer and more prone to mould from the humidity. The most commonly grown variety here is a locally adapted Japanese cultivar — smaller than a supermarket berry, fairly tart, with a fragrance that commercial hothouse fruit can't replicate.

What to Look For

Not all farms are equal. Some near the tourist centres closer to Xuan Huong Lake have been running the same polytunnels for twenty years on tired soil, and the fruit shows it — pale, watery, not worth the entry fee. The better operations are further out, past the 10-km mark on the road toward Lac Duong. Ask guesthouse staff or your xe om driver for a recommendation rather than following tour-bus signage.

Beyond the u-pick model, the night market on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai street sells fresh strawberries by the basket from around 6 PM. Prices here — 60,000 to 80,000 VND per 500g punnet — are more honest than at the farms closest to the centre, where tourist markup is standard.

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The Artichoke Operations

The "atiso" farms are less photographed but more interesting if you actually care about how food is grown and processed. The plant itself is the same globe artichoke eaten in European cuisine — large, architectural, with purple-tipped leaves. In Da Lat, though, the entire plant is harvested differently. The flower buds go to restaurants in Hanoi and Saigon (사이공 / 西贡 / サイゴン), but the leaves, roots, and stems are dried and sold as the base for "tra atiso", artichoke tea, one of Da Lat's most distinctive exports.

You'll find artichoke fields in the Van Thanh and Xuan Tho areas, around 4 to 7 km north of the centre. These aren't tourist farms with entry gates — they're working agricultural plots. The best way to see them properly is to rent a motorbike and ride the back roads between Van Thanh village and the Lang Biang plateau. The fields are large, visible from the road, and in peak growing season (roughly October to February) the landscape turns a silvery green from the spiny leaves.

For buying dried atiso: the market stalls on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and the permanent vendors at Cho Da Lat (Da Lat Central Market) sell the dried flower buds and compressed tea blocks. A 500g bag of dried buds runs about 80,000 to 120,000 VND. The tea brewed from them is lightly bitter, faintly sweet, and said — though not clinically proven — to support liver health. Vietnamese people drink it regularly enough that it's sold pre-bottled in convenience stores across the country.

Photo by LUC PH@M on Pexels

Eating the Produce in Town

If farming tourism isn't your thing but you still want to understand what Da Lat grows, the city's restaurants are a shortcut. Look for menus advertising "rau muong xao toi" (water spinach with garlic) and grilled corn from local fields, or ask specifically for dishes using Da Lat produce. A number of mid-range restaurants on Truong Cong Dinh street — the area sometimes called "Little Paris" by locals — build their entire menus around highland vegetables, pairing them with grilled meats and "ruou can", rice wine drunk through communal straws, typical of the local K'Ho ethnic minority tradition.

For something more casual, the food stalls near the train station on Quang Trung sell "banh mi" filled with strawberry jam alongside the usual pate versions — a Da Lat novelty that's less strange than it sounds.

Practical Notes

Best time to visit the farms is December to March: cool, mostly dry, and full harvest season for both strawberries and artichokes. A motorbike rental in Da Lat runs around 100,000 to 150,000 VND per day, which is the most efficient way to reach the outlying farm areas. If you're buying dried atiso or fresh strawberries to take home, pack them in your check-in luggage — airline staff occasionally question large quantities of produce in cabin bags.