Starbucks expands to Vietnam

Starbucks expands to Vietnam

MIKE IVES | Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam – Starbucks Corp. will open its first Vietnam café early next month in Ho Chi Minh City as part of its strategy to expand across Asia, the company said.

The Seattle-based chain will be entering a country of coffee lovers that already has an established market. At least two popular homegrown chains have dozens of locations nationwide, and family-run sidewalk cafés dot the streets and alleys of larger Vietnamese cities.

Starbucks said it operates more than 3,300 stores across 11 countries in China and the Asia-Pacific region, but its Vietnam cafés will celebrate the country’s “coffee culture and heritage.”

“We are looking forward to serving our customers in Vietnam in an authentic and locally relevant way,” Jinlong Wang, president for Starbucks Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer behind Brazil and already provides high-quality beans for Starbucks stores in other countries.

The company said it has designated a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Maxim’s Group as its licensee in Vietnam.

French colonizers introduced coffee to Vietnam in the nineteenth century, but coffee here typically is stronger than European espresso and can be served with tea.

Starbucks, named after a character in Herman Melville’s nineteenth-century novel Moby Dick, opened in 1971 and has nearly 18,000 retail stores in 60 countries.

Vietnam coffee premium shrinks as London futures prices advance | Look At Vietnam

Vietnam coffee premium shrinks as London futures prices advance 

July 5, 2012

Buyers of coffee from Vietnam, the world’s biggest grower of the robusta variety, are paying a smaller premium for their beans after futures prices in London climbed, according to trading company NC Group Ltd.
Vietnamese coffee for immediate shipment was at a premium of $5 to $10 a metric ton to the price of the September contract on the NYSE Liffe exchange in London, the trader said in a report e-mailed on Wednesday. That compares with $20 a ton on July 2. Robusta coffee for September delivery advanced 2.7 percent over the past week in London.
The “differential level eased back $10 to $15 due to the recent increase in the terminal price,” Nguyen Chi Cuong, chief executive officer at the company, which has a trading office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, wrote in the report.
Differentials refer to a premium or discount to obtain physical coffee in relation to the futures price.
Robusta futures climbed as arabica coffee advanced on speculation rains that are delaying the harvest in Brazil, the world’s biggest coffee producer, will damage the beans, lowering their quality. Arabica coffee rose 8.9 percent in the past week on ICE Futures US in New York.
“London coffee has almost become a forgotten uncle over the last few sessions as New York takes all the glory,” London- based futures and options broker Sucden Financial Ltd. said in a daily report e-mailed on Tuesday. “Gradually, robusta prices improved, almost reluctantly in New York’s shadow.”
Arabica coffee is grown mainly in Latin America and is favored for specialty drinks such as those made by Starbucks Corp. Robusta beans, harvested mainly in Asia and parts of Africa, are used for instant drinks and espresso.
NC Group was established in 2004 and trades natural rubber and coffee. The company sells 80,000 to 150,000 bags of coffee a year. Cuong was previously a coffee trader in Vietnam with Noble Group Ltd.

Bloomberg 

Asia's Best Coffee - Vietnam

There's no such thing as a quick cup of coffee in Vietnam, where communing with friends over a glass or two is a social ritual on par with the handshake in the West.

"It's all about the conversation, chewing the fat, watching the world go by," says Mark Lowerson, an Australian English-language-class coordinator and culinary-tour guide who has lived in Hanoi for seven years. "We (Westerners) can be at one with our coffee whereas Vietnamese will enjoy it much more among friends."

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Coffee -- along with baguettes and crème caramel -- is a culinary holdover of French colonial rule (French-administered Indochina was established in 1887 and dissolved in 1954), when coffee plants were introduced to Vietnam's central highlands by French missionaries. Production dropped off during the Vietnam War but resumed in the 1980s; today Vietnam, which grows primarily robusta but also arabica and small amounts of lesser-known varieties, is one of the world's largest producers.

Usually brewed into a glass at the table using excruciatingly slow single-cup drip filters called ca phe phin, Vietnamese coffee is mixed with sugar and sweetened condensed milk and poured over ice; the resulting concoction is called ca phe sua da (if you prefer yours hot, ask for ca phe sua nong; in Vietnam even black coffee is usually drunk with sugar). It's a burly but smooth brew with a hint of chocolate, a flavor that comes from roasting beans with "butter oil" (clarified butter, margarine or vegetable oil) and sometimes sugar, as well as with other ingredients whose identities are closely guarded by roasters (fish sauce is rumored to be one).

In Vietnam, tea is for drinking at home, while coffee is for enjoying at a cafe. That word may be applied to anything from three tiny plastic stools clustered on the sidewalk in front of a shed to the outlets of upmarket homegrown coffee-shop chains such as Trung Nguyen and Highlands.

Most small operators pride themselves on serving coffee with its own unique flavor, so coffee tasting in Vietnam is a great adventure. "I go to certain cafes for a certain cup because that's the flavor I feel like at the time," says Mr. Lowerson, who likes to find a perch with a good view of Vietnam's frenetic street life.

Though he hesitates to recommend any particular Hanoi cafe, Mr. Lowerson does have some advice for the coffee loving visitor: "Just pull up a stool anywhere, sip the sweetness and watch the passing parade."

Glossary

Ca phe sua da: iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk

Ca phe sua nong: hot coffee with milk

Ca phe da: iced coffee with sugar only

Ca phe nong: hot coffee with sugar only

Where to find a good cup

Publish Post

A good-to-stellar glass of ca phe sua da is literally never more than a block away in Vietnam, though Ho Chi Minh City boasts more three-stool sidewalk "cafes" than the capital city of Hanoi. If you prefer a proper cafe, the Trung Nguyen and Highlands cafes are always a good bet. Both have branches all over Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

Cup of coffee reunites 2 Taiwan sisters separated since childhood

Two Taiwan sisters separated since childhood 40 years ago were recently reunited, virtually by a cup of coffee, a newspaper reported on Thursday. ( dpa )


Ho Mei-yun and Fang Chuang-li were born into a poor family which had 13 children. Hoping to give their kids a good life, their parents kept only 8 kids and gave away the rest to better-off families, the United Daily News said.


Ho was put up for adoption when she was 11 months old. Her adopted parents allowed her to see her "nanny" - who was her mother - once a year, but Ho later found out the "nanny" was her mother, so she eventually resumed contact with her biological family.


Fang, Ho's younger sister, was given away when she was 2 months old. She heard from neighbors that she had been adopted and found out that her parents lived on Hami Road in Taipei, but her adopted parents barred her from tracing her parents.


Ho and Fang have been working as insurance agents at the Cathay Life Insurance to work as insurance agents, but did not know each other as the company has nearly 30,000 employees across Taiwan and they worked in different departments, the United Daily News said.


Recently Cathay Life Insurance paid for its outstanding insurance agents to go to Los Angeles for its annual meeting which doubled as a bonus vacation. Ho and Fang sat in the came coach but did not know they were related.


On the day of departure, Ho bought a large cup of coffee. Seeing Fang and another colleague also wanted to buy coffee, she suggested the two share her cup of coffee because the cup was too large for her.


So they sat down to chat and asked one another's age. Both Ho and Fang said they are older than their registered age because they were adopted and their adopted parents did not register their correct birth date.


The more Ho and Fang recalled their childhood, the more they felt they were from the same family, and the other colleague even asked: "Don't you think you are separated sisters?"


So from the Los Angeles airport, Ho phoned her eldest sister in Taiwan to check the details of the Number 8 sister, and concluded Fang is the No 8 sister.


When Ho brought the news to Fang, the two cried in a tight embrace while their colleagues stood around clapping hands for their reunion.


Ho and Fang returned to Taipei several days ago. Cathay Life Insurance held a news conference Wednesday to break the good news to the press.


At the news conference, Fang said the theme of the company's annual meeting in Los Angeles was "Change Your Life," and the trip has certainly changed her life.

Vietnam coffee prices hit new high, sales slow - Global Markets-Markets-The Economic Times

Vietnam coffee prices hit new high
HANOI: Vietnamese coffee prices rose to a new high of $2.05 per kg of beans on Tuesday, prompting farmers to slow sales even though they have started their new production cycle, traders said.
"The price of around 33,000 dong per kg is already too good so we wish we could sell now but it's been difficult to buy from farmers as they do not sell much," an exporter based in the key growing province of Daklak told the media.