Vietnamese Coffee-Nami

Vietnamese Coffee

Nami

Today I will talk about coffee in Vietnam but before I do, I would like to introduce you to a second hypothesis of the origin of coffee. On the last post, I wrote down the one hypothesis but there actually are two hypotheses so I would like to introduce you to another one.

             According to the second big legend of coffee, the physician Sheik Omar had a disagreement with the ruler and was expelled from his home town of Mokka in Yemen. As he traveled through the Arabian Peninsula, he happened to boil red bean from a nearby bush. Surprised by stimulant effects of the drink, he began using it as a part of care for his patients. It had become so famous that an unfriendly ruler invited Omar back to this country. Later the plants were exported across The Red Sea to Yemen, to Egypt, Syria and Turkey where coffee was known as "Arabian wine". Rulers and religious leaders first persecuted and punished coffee consumers but by 15th century coffee was a favorite drink. Thanks to the Venetian merchants, coffee came to Europe in late 1500’ and London had become a big coffee city with more than 3000 coffee shops by 1700’.

             Now I am going to talk about the coffee in Vietnam. The largest country of coffee is, as you know, Brazil and the second one is Vietnam. We have been learning the area studies in Southeast Asia this semester in the class of Professor Stan so I thought talking about the country in Southeast Asia related to my topic “coffee” would be nice. So I would like to talk about Vietnamese coffee industry.

             Vietnam had taken over the second coffee producing place from Colombia so easily in 2003. Because of the low wages of workers and high production, Vietnam is always considered as the low-cost production country. Thus this country is producing a mass of low-price coffee, most of the blends from major coffee companies are from Vietnam.

             The production scale of Vietnam is huge enough that it has a potential to change the global supply and demand dramatically. This has an important meaning on coffee industry because this has a big influence on the prices of coffee in the world. It was claimed that “the production record in 2000 has caused the sudden fall of the market price”. But the great harvests in next two years that are surpassed pressured on reducing the market price.

              The government authorities recognize this huge quantity of production as too much to maintain the durability of its coffee industry. In order to solve this situation, a plantation will be compressed into 110,000 ha by 2010, and asking earnestly to double the annual domestic amount of consumption to a million bags. However, implementation of the plan is very much behind.

             Now I would like to talk a little about Vietnamese Coffee. Vietnamese Coffee is as much fun to make as it is to watch. It is a real treat, especially for those who enjoy their coffee strong and sweet. What you need to make Vietnamese Coffee is; a Vietnamese filter, coffee (optionally with chicory), and condensed milk. Condensed milk typically contains sugar and is heat processed with steam. Steamed milk has different physics from non-steamed milk and tastes better when used in coffee