Hot Beverages Coffee culture in Vietnam
Vietnam’s coffee culture is special in many ways. Its citizens developed an appreciation for coffee specialities long before other countries in the region; while coffee only really became popular in China when globalisation took hold, the Vietnamese have been enjoying this invigorating warm beverage since the 19th century.
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Over this period, the country has developed its own unique coffee culture shaped by historic events.
From Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, locals and tourists alike enjoy a diverse – and, from a western perspective, highly unusual – range of coffee specialities. The innovation on the Vietnamese coffee scene has been driven in part by the fact that the south-east Asian country almost exclusively cultivates and consumes Robusta coffee. But the vast plantations between Laos, Cambodia and the South China Sea yield far more coffee than is needed to satisfy local demand. In fact, Vietnam’s crops account for 20 per cent of the coffee grown worldwide, firmly establishing the country as the globe’s second-largest coffee producer.
A turbulent history
As early as 1857, French missionaries imported the first Coffea plants into Indochina, which was part of the French Empire. However, it was not until 1888 that the country sowed its first major plantations and began to produce coffee on a larger scale. The crops from these plantations were earmarked primarily for the French
colonial officials residing in the country. Over the next few years, the plantations were expanded under the watchful eye of the Europeans, and coffee became an important export. But this period of growth came to an abrupt end when the country was occupied by Japanese forces during the Second World War and when it subsequently declared its independence from France. After a decade of political and economic instability, the coffee industry was finally able to embark on its long journey to recovery when the Vietnam War ended in 1975. The new Socialist Republic of Vietnam nationalised all of the country’s coffee plantations and, in the mid-1980s, a programme of economic reforms was launched. Today, small privately owned plantations are responsible for the vast majority of the country’s coffee production.
support from GermAny
The country’s relationship with East Germany was also key to its recovery. When global market prices for coffee rose steeply in the mid-1970s, East Germany soon found itself facing supply issues. In an attempt to resolve the bottlenecks, East German leaders and the Vietnamese government entered into a number of agreements: In exchange for half of Vietnam’s coffee harvest over a period of 20 years, East Germany would provide material development aid and share its knowledge and expertise with Vietnam on an enormous scale. Ultimately, neither side was able to reap the rewards of these agreements. By the time Vietnam was ready for its first major harvest in 1990, the German Democratic Republic was already at the point of being confined to the history books. However, the newly reunified
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Germany continued to import large amounts of Vietnamese coffee, and Germany is still its largest coffee customer.
robust plAnts for hiGh yields
Today, Vietnam is the second-largest producer of coffee in the world, after Brazil. Unlike the traditional “coffee countries” of Colombia and Ethiopia, Vietnam focuses on Robusta varieties, which account for around 97 per cent of the beans harvested in the country. For the growers, this is a sensible choice: The plants are less demanding and easier to care for. However, the bitter taste and high caffeine content of Robusta coffee makes it a less popular choice with baristas and consumers in the west where it is primarily used to bulk out blends, in instant coffee or in industrially manufactured products. But Vietnam locals love the intense flavour and nutty, chocolatey notes of Robusta beans, and use them in a wide range of exciting coffee creations.
A trAdition of extrAordinAry creAtions
The diverse coffee specialities available in Vietnam are usually based on a filter coffee prepared using traditional Vietnamese methods. The coffee is brewed using a special metal filter placed directly on top of the cup or glass. As the beans and their dark roast produce a strong coffee, the beverage is often served – especially to tourists – with hot water to dilute it. But the method of preparation is not the only way in which Vietnamese coffee culture sets itself apart: It also uses some unusual ingredients. For traditional Vietnamese iced coffee, the freshly brewed coffee is poured into a glass of ice-cold condensed milk. In some speciality coffee shops, the refreshing
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