It is hardest job to change customer preferences and assumptions. Vietnam did not start out as a producer of arabica coffee. Being a French colony, rubusta was cultivated beginning in the late 19th century to the extent that placed Vietnam in the position of being the worlds largest producer of robusta coffee. Because of this, it is difficult for Vietnam to shake the image of not being an origin of choice for specialty grade arabica. It hasn't been long ago that Brazil was considered for commercial grade only, but since most of it's coffee, 70% I've learned, is arabica, it has been easier for them to enter into the world of specialty coffee, and be taken seriously. If you don't mind, I'll use the analogy of goods coming into the US from Japan after the end of WWII. So much low quality stuff that all had the tag "Made in Japan" that Japan became synonymous with poor quality goods. Over the years, this has turned around so much so that many things made in Japan are regarded as top shelf and on par with goods coming out of Germany for the engineering, Italy for design, and Scandinavia for innovation. Vietnam can turn the ship around too...but there is no easy way other than a national commitment to achieving that goal.
The situation. I do agree with you on the reputation of Vietnamese coffee at present. Not far ago, many local Vietnamese green coffee traders had mixed a lot of foreign matters to trick their foreing buyers especially the ones from Europe. The common approach is normally like this - at the beginning the quality is good and when time goes by and more mutual trust has been built, coffee quality goes crazy. I think this is not only in coffee. We can easily find the same scandal on peppers, and other agro-commodities from Vietnam. On the other side, Vietnamese local coffee farmers have been overusing a lot of artifical fertilizers to boost 'eir coffee quantity. One more thing is that at the beginning of coffee booming in Vietnam, many people got rich with it and the rest were flock to grow coffee. As a result, people insisted on cultivating coffee at any spaces and areas that might not be suitable to grow up coffee. And, as you know, coffee from these farms are not really good. During the coffee crisis of 2000s, many local coffee farms had to cut down their coffee trees to get rid of the industry. ("Planting & Destroying" is another story of Vietnamese agriculture that needs much more time to discuss).
To sum up, here are facts that affect Vietnamese coffee quality's reputation:
- Robusta varieties - of course.
- A lot of tricks & mocks of some Vietnamese coffee traders. I heard that some even mix stones, parchment into coffee for sale.
- Overusage of artificial fertilizers.
- Inappropriate cultivation in some areas.
The history. I might not agree with you on the history of Vietnamese coffee especially at the beginning. It is correct that the French were first introduced coffee into Vietnam. And to be frankly, they have many efforts to form and inspire the way Vietnamese people brew and enjoy coffee until today. The Vietnamese phin filter (or Vietnamese dripper) is actually an invention of the French. Or Vietnamese are in love with French roast (or super dark roast) coffee. But, the first coffee introduced into Vietnam was not robusta. It was Arabica. These arabica were planted on the North first where they formed a single origin arabica named "Arabica du
Tonkin" (Vietnamese: Bắc Kỳ, historically Đàng Ngoài). But, unfortunately, it got some leaf rust and most of crops were failed. I was born on the North of Vietnam and at my young time, I did see several small coffee gardens (not farms:]) left in my village. 100% of the then arabica were original arabica which today you can easily find in some farms in Da Lat city or in some provinces in the Middles. For new growing regions in the North such as Son La, Dien Bien, they are all new cultivation areas which mainly focus on growing Catimor.
The mordern robusta. As far as I know, Vietnamese coffee farmers didn't aim to grow robusta at the beginning. Choosing to grow robusta was the decision of the then Vietnamese government. The situation was that after applying a centrally planned economy during 1970s and 1980s under the directions of Socialism economy and theories, Vietnam (both farmers and government) got tired. The domestic economy was down while Vietnam had a war with Cambodia and China (both in 1979), the inflation rate was very high (up to 870%) (you can see, now every Vietnamese is a millionaire), the government decided to make a Renovation (aka
Doi Moi) in which they quitted centrally-planned economy and returned farms to farmers. Everything went smooth & quickly except coffee. Vietnamese government at that time thought of coffee very carefully. They definitely knew arabica had better price but easily to get disease (leaf rust) while robusta is more robust, but with cheap price and lower quality. Finally, they chose robusta as we all have known. Why? The simple answer is the government didn't want to take risk. They chose robusta for certainty because robusta would be the strategic tree/plant to help Central Highlanders to get rid of poverty and famine. Nowadays, many Central Highlanders are very rich thanks to coffee even robusta don't have as high price as arabica. One more thing, Vietnam is the main reason of bankruptcies of many coffee farms across the globe as its robusta are very cheap.
The future. Like you, I believe Vietnam is still having a chance, Mr. Peaberry. Things are changing very fast in Vietnam today. The government aims to increase the country's arabica production upto 200,000 MT per annum by 2020 (now approx. 60,000 MT per annum) by expanding cultivation to the North. Vietnamese coffee farmers are more aware of growing sustainable coffee production. They now apply effective watering system. They use coffee pulps and residues to make organic fertilizers and then resupply to coffee farms. However, things need to change much faster and great efforts must be carried out. And most importantly, I think that Vietnamese coffee producers must think of world's standard quality for coffee and world's local tastes first.
