1. 42 | The Word June 2011 June 2011 The Word | 43
to make it an event at our cafes,” says Cricenti.
A man of Italian heritage, he takes his coffee
drinking — 11 cups per day — seriously and
wants to share the joy of the experience with
a new coffee culture.
Serving only Arabica blends, Cricenti
finds the Vietnamese market challenging
for Illy because rents are high and a typical
coffee costs VND65,000, which is more than
most people are accustomed to paying for
their morning jolt. “You need to sell a LOT
of coffee to pay US$20,000 in rent in District 1
every month,” he says.
Illy Coffee, based in Trieste, Italy, started in
1933, but has only been in Vietnam for three
years. “As a coffee, it’s great. But as a concept,
it’s going to take time,” explains Cricenti.
The brand aims to educate the local coffee
drinking population by training baristas and
providing coffee and machines to high-end
restaurants and hotels. “By providing training
from how good coffee is grown to how it’s
brewed, we believe we can expand the coffee
culture in this country,” claims Cricenti.
Tran Duy Quyen, the owner of Ara Coffee,
notonlyoperatesfivestoresinSaigon,butalso
distributes his own brand of blended Robusta
coffee to several businesses throughout the
city. He’s critical of the roasters in Vietnam,
explaining, “They add chemicals to the
roasting process to manipulate the taste,
which is unhealthy. You have to be mindful
about where you buy coffee in order to avoid
drinking coffee loaded with these chemicals.”
“I got into the coffee business because I
love coffee,” he adds. “I want to help people
enjoy good coffee.”
Quyen foregoes higher profits to protect
his brand by selling his coffee only to those
merchants he knows won’t blend it with an
inferior product. “When it comes to coffee,
tasteisthemostimportantthing,”heexplains.
He backs up his claim by giving me a cup of
coffee to taste. Up until this point I found
Vietnamese coffee far too bitter and strong
for my inexperienced palate. I noticed the
difference between his coffee and that of the
others I’ve tried around town immediately.
It didn’t have a lingering bitter taste, but a
pleasant one that wasn’t overbearing and
didn’t come with too much caffeine.
Addicted to Black
Where Cricenti and Quyen are attempting to
help the coffee culture evolve by specialising
in either Arabica or Robusta, Giorgio Vergano
of Punto Italia Coffee from Italy, is using both
Arabica and an Arabica/Robusta blend to
help educate taste buds in Vietnam. Based in
Hanoi, and also with operations in Saigon,
his brand has been here for three years now.
Vergano explains one simple rule for
producing a great blend of coffee: that it has
to come from five different regions, not one.
“Many coffee producing countries have bad
coffee because they use only their beans,”
he explains. “Coffee is like a rainbow. When
you look at a rainbow, what attracts you?
The many colours. If you have a coffee that
comes from only one region it’s like having a
rainbow with only one colour.” It didn’t take
long before I realised I was speaking with the
I grew up in a traditional Italian
family. As an American, I watched as
Starbucks engulfed the US, and now I reside
in Vietnam, a nation with an enormous coffee
culture of its own. Yet somehow, despite
these circumstances, I’ve never been a coffee
drinker. Sure, I have the occasional cup
here or there, but it’s never been important
to me. My father watched me pour sugar
and milk into a cup of coffee when I was a
kid and remarked that if I was interested
in drinking coffee I should learn to drink it
black, or don’t bother. Like many sons who
rebel against their fathers, I never bothered.
When I accepted the assignment to write this
article it never occurred to me that I’d learn
so much about coffee, or that there was so
much to learn.
According to legend, sometime between
the 5th and 9th centuries, an Ethiopian goat
herder named Kaldi, of the Oromo people
who were located in the Kaffa region (from
which coffee gets its name), watched as his
herd ate red cherries from a bush. When they
began to jump around with enormous energy
Kaldi ate the cherries and found they made
him jubilant. He brought the cherries to an
Islamic holy man in a nearby monastery. The
holy man was disapproving of them and
threw them into the fire. When a pleasing
aroma wafted from the flames the roasted
beanswereremovedfromtheembers,ground
up, and dissolved in hot water producing the
world’s first cup of coffee.
The Forbidden Cherry
Coffee spread to Egypt and Yemen and
then to the rest of the Arab world. In 1511,
coffee was labeled as haraam (forbidden)
at a meeting of Muslim scholars in Mecca.
Many conservatives labelled it as heretical.
Because of its use by Sufis for religious rites,
coffee was put on trial in Mecca. After a 30-
year debate over whether or not it was an
intoxicant, the ban was eventually lifted and
coffee was proclaimed a Muslim drink. This
characterisation, of course, led to it being
forbidden by many orthodox Christian sects
until as recently as the late 19th century.
Coffee spread hand in hand with Islam
and, by the 16th century, it had reached the
rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey and
North Africa. It then spread to Italy and the
rest of Europe, Indonesia and the Americas.
The French eventually introduced coffee to
Vietnam in 1857. Its use here has steadily
grown over the years and has become
Vietnam’s second most important crop after
rice with projected 2011 revenues of over
$2.5 billion. Of the 50 countries in which
coffee is grown, Vietnam is presently the
world’s number two producer of green
coffee (unroasted, raw coffee beans) behind
only Brazil, who produces approximately
one third of the world’s crop. Worldwide
revenues for coffee exceed US$60 billion
annually as we gulp down over 500 billion
cups each year.
A Bitter Taste
There are two primary varieties of coffee
beans, Arabica and Robusta. Robusta,
the main type grown here in Vietnam, is
marked by a strong bitter taste. As the coffee
culture grows more sophisticated, however,
Arabica, which is considerably more
expensive at US$40/kg, is making inroads
among coffee drinkers.
Tony Cricenti, the CEO of Illy Coffee here
in Vietnam, is working to help acclimatise the
local coffee market not only to Arabica coffee,
but also to a new way of experiencing coffee.
“Coffee drinking in most of the world is a
morning ritual at breakfast, but we’re looking
BLACK GOLD
From its humble discovery in Kaffa to becoming one of Vietnam's leading
exports, Julian Ajello finds out more about this much-loved beverage that
the locals call ca phe. Photos by Galen Stolee
Ara Coffee
43 Vo Truong Toan Q2
2-4 Ben Cain Giuoc Q8
230 Nguyen Trai Q1(inside Citi
Supermarket)
Illy
www.illy.com
Punto Italia
www.puntoitalia.asia
FOR MORE INFO ON
brands mentioned in
the article visit:
Obi-Wan Kenobi of coffee.
According to Vergano, beans from different
regions have different characteristics and
require different roasting temperatures
and times, so they don’t roast all the beans
together. And Italian law forbids the addition
of any substances to the roasting process
other than the beans. This ensures a superior
flavour. “While Vietnam is second in the
world in coffee production it has trouble
selling all of its beans because they’re of
inferior quality. What’s the point of being
number two if you’re known for lacking in
quality?”
This becomes a problem for the growers
who need the money. Unlike rice, you can’t
feed your family with unsold coffee beans.
Baristas are very well-respected in Italy
according to Vergana. “If you pay US$2 for a
shot of espresso and it’s not good, you won’t
return,” he rightly explains.
“The morning coffee is about the caffeine,
but then you drink it for the aftertaste,”
he adds. “And at US$40 per kilo you need
customers to return.” He professes that a lack
of understanding for the process and art of
making coffee is why many people in the
hotel and restaurant industries are put off by
the high price of good coffee and instead opt
for blends that cost US$15 per kilo.
All three men explain that because
Vietnam has a robust coffee industry and
accompanying culture, it’s time to invest
in quality. Instead of strip-picking crops, a
method that saves money but plucks unripe,
green cherries along with ripened red ones,
which diminishes quality, growers have to
be more selective in picking the cherries.
Because of the lower quality, much of the
country’s coffee crop is used to make many
of the lesser quality, instant coffee products.
Furthermore, they believe it’s time for
the country to increase its Arabica crops.
Although Arabica plants take three years
to yield the first crop and produce only one
crop per year, it pays off in the long-term
because the quality of the coffee is higher, and
therefore easier to sell.
The evolution from ca phe sua da to
cappuccino is gaining popularity in this
country. As people start to educate their
palates and try new things, the future of the
business is brighter than ever. Finally, I ask
all three for advice on what to do to learn
about good coffee. All three provide the same
answer: drink it black. I just hope my father
doesn't read this.