Me Tri green rice grains are flat, thin, and naturally jade green, a color from chlorophyll retained in the young rice grain. Good green rice has the fragrance of new rice and is chewy with a light sweetness. Makers say autumn green rice is the best, thanks to dry weather and early-morning dew.
Making green rice starts in the fields. Glutinous rice plants need about 90 to 100 days to produce grains. The rice is harvested while the grains are still young and in the milk stage; one or two days later the grains are too mature and cannot make good green rice. Villagers often cut the rice very early, sometimes from two or three in the morning, when dew is still on the leaves. Villagers use many glutinous rice varieties such as tan, quyt, thom, and cai hoa vang; among them, cai hoa vang is rated highest for fragrance.
The rice is roasted over a wood fire, about two to three hours per batch. The worker occasionally takes a few grains and squeezes them to test the chewiness; this step is still done by hand. After roasting, the paddy is poured into a large stone mortar sunk into the floor to be pounded, then sifted several times to separate the husks and keep the flat green grains. Each batch yields about 5 kg of green rice. Before dawn, the village is already alive with the sound of pestles pounding green rice, mingling with wood smoke and the smell of freshly roasted young rice.
Green rice is usually wrapped in lotus leaves, sometimes in taro leaves tied with rice-straw string, to preserve its fragrance, as if wrapping the scent of the fields to bring back to the city. Hanoians eat green rice slowly: pinching a little at a time with their fingertips, eating it with speckled bananas or ripe persimmons so the sweetness of the fruit blends with the chewy fragrance of the green rice. From the green rice grains, people also make many other dishes such as green rice cakes, green rice patties, green rice sticky rice, green rice sweet soup, and even green rice wine.
The name Me Tri village is commonly understood as 'rice pond,' suggesting a land famous for good rice since ancient times. The village has two hamlets, Me Tri Thuong and Me Tri Ha. The green rice craft has been passed down through many generations; some families have followed it for four generations, and some people began following their mothers to sell green rice across Hanoi streets at the age of twelve.
In 2019, the Me Tri green rice craft was included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List, under the category of traditional handicraft. In the same year, Me Tri green rice was introduced to international journalists on the occasion of the second US–North Korea summit in Hanoi. The main green rice season is around September–October; currently the village also has an additional green rice crop around the fifth lunar month. Amid urbanization, the village’s green rice output remains fairly stable, and Me Tri green rice is still a gift many people choose whenever autumn comes.
Me Tri green rice establishments are listed in the Food section of HanoiGo. The journey of seven heritage dishes closes with dinner with a pan of La Vong grilled fish.
