Vietnamese coffee
Vietnam has a long history of coffee production that was encouraged and refined by the French about maybe 70 years ago. At one time the primary emphasis was on top quality coffee, then after decades of war, when coffee production was once again resumed heavily in the 90s, the emphasis was on production of green beans for sale on the world commodities market.
In the 1990's Vietnam became once again a competitor to Brazil for world's largest exporting country, but the coffee glut at that time caused severe financial depradation for the growers due to plummeting prices. However some entrepreneurial companies took advantage of the new freedoms to band together growers and roasters and packaging to become all-in-one coffee producers. The result was fabulous quality and flavor and much higher, more stable prices for the growers.
The Cafe du Monde that is produced by a company in Louisiana is an example of the French influence and French tastes. If you like French roast with chicory, its a fine drink, and is popular with a lot of Vietnamese and their restaurants in the USA.
Indigenous producers create a much higher quality coffee, however, and Trung Nguyen is the first company to take control of its process to the point of identifying specific varietals, encouraging their production in ideal locations, then taking the beans (4 varieties - robusta, arabica, chari and catimor) and combining them into different blends for different tastes.
I spent months looking for what I thought was the best coffee and when I found Trung Nguyen in an asian supermarket I fell in love. After being frustrated in finding it I contacted the company and began importing it myself.
The brown box is their House Blend, the four varieties. The can is a "premium house blend". The bags are called Creation coffees and are different blends of 1-4 of the coffees, including some that are "culi" (pea-beans, unsplit). They also are the company that makes the "Weasel" enzyme treated coffee that you hear about.
The Vietnamese are actually the main pioneers of Robusta. But their Robusta is so much better than the Robusta beans produced elsewhere for the economy market that, to me, they aren't really the same coffee at all.
The little one-cup filters that are popular in coffeeshops make an incredibly rich-flavored brew (about 5 ounces) and they are a little tricky to use but now that I am used to mine it's my favorite way to brew it.
More info can be found on
www.trung-nguyen-online.com or do a search for Trung Nguyen coffees, there is a lot of interesting history there as well.
I hope this answers some questions on Vietnamese coffees. I'm writing a piece on how to use the little brewer-filters... it was hard for me to find information on it, so I think this might help others avoid all my trial-and-error.
