Ho Chi Minh City, (Xinhua):

“We are striving to make King Coffee one of world’s top five coffee brands and to make Vietnam a global coffee powerhouse,” the wife of Vietnam’s coffee king told Xinhua.

Le Hoang Diep Thao is the chief executive officer of Ho Chi Minh City-based Trung Nguyen International Corporation (TNI), part of the Trung Nguyen Group (TNG).

Her husband, Dang Le Nguyen Vu, who has been recognized as Vietnam’s coffee king by Forbes Asia and National Geographic Traveler, is the co-founder and co-owner of TNG, a leading coffee firm in Vietnam, specializing in instant coffee, roasted and ground coffee, cafe trading and coffee export.

After the couple successfully brought the G7 coffee brand to more than 60 countries in the world, Thao launched TNI King Coffee and is aiming to conquer the hearts of coffee lovers all over the world, including over 1.3 billion Chinese consumers who are used to drinking tea.

“In the last 20 years, we have focused on the coffee business only. We provide full services, from coffee bean plantation to blending and roasting,” Thao said.

“TNI’s coffee beans are finely chosen from the best coffee beans in Buon Ma Thuot (the capital city of Dak Lak central highland province, Vietnam’s coffee kingdom).

Combined with advanced technology, production equipment imported from Europe, and the secret recipe from Trung Nguyen, TNI coffee is distinctive,” the graceful woman, wearing a long, red traditional dress explained.

In late April, Thao put into operation a big TNI King Coffee factory, with an initial capacity of churning out 9,000 tons of roasted coffee beans and 19,800 tons of instant coffee a year, in the southern province of Binh Duong.

King Coffee has been exported to many countries in the world, including the United States, Australia, Russia, China, India, South Korea and Singapore, and is expected to be available in 129 other markets in the future.

“King Coffee for the king market,” Thao said, implying that China is world’s biggest coffee consumer. In China, King Coffee has advanced to become one of the four best-selling brands on T-Mall Supermarket, one of three key e-commerce websites of online trade platform Alibaba.

In March, at the 96th China Food and Drink Fair held in the Chinese city of Chengdu, Thao announced that TNI will strive to meet its sales target of 1 billion U.S. dollars from the Chinese market in the next few years.

“More and more Chinese young people like to drink coffee and regard it as a casual lifestyle,” Thao stated.

Peter Tsang, Trung Nguyen’s general manager in charge of the Chinese mainland, echoed Thao’s statement, saying the Chinese market’s potentiality is huge and cafes are mushrooming there and becoming indispensable for Chinese youths.

“Most of China’s population is used to drinking tea, but many Chinese people, especially youngsters, like to drink coffee,” he said, adding that Vietnamese coffee exported to China enjoys preferential treatment, including tax incentives.

There are three key factors leading to the success of Trung Nguyen coffee in China, namely Vietnam’s fine coffee beans, the firm’s know-how, and the use of European machines and technologies, Tsang stated.
“We hope that we will attain the sales target of 1 billion U.S dollars in the Chinese market by 2020,” he said.

Now, over 1,000 Trung Nguyen cafés are set up home and abroad.

However, two decades ago, Vu, born in 1971, was a medical student with poor parents. Motivated by the aspiration to make a fortune for himself and his country by selling processed coffee, Vu, in 1996, opened a coffee roasting facility in Dak Lak, with a total workforce of only four, including himself and three of his friends.

Having practically no money or experience, Vu struggled to make his business survive while still having to attend classes. Time went by, and so did the money Vu invested in his small production base. His parents had to sell their own house to contribute capital to the base.

According to local media, Vu, burdened with financial difficulties but wanting to realize his dream, met Thao, a 20-year-old lady, who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth (her father is a gold jewelry tycoon in Buon Ma Thuot), and agreed to marry.

Vietnam, the world’s second biggest coffee exporter after Brazil, shipped 467,000 tons of coffee worth nearly 1.1 billion U.S. dollars overseas in the first quarter of this year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Thao expressed her strong belief that TNI King Coffee will be a huge success, especially in international markets, like the previous brand G7.

“My greatest vision is expanding the Vietnamese brand all over the world, and for it to be able to compete with multinational companies in the coffee industry,” she said.

source: http://www.news.xinhuanet.com / Xinhuanet.com / Home / source: Xinhua / by Tao Jun, Dong Hua / April 28th, 2017

Sao Lourenco, Brazil,(Xinhua) :

A small Brazilian city, once famous for its mineral water springs, is now welcoming tourists with new attractions — a specialty coffee with unique taste and quality.

Besides enjoying the natural beauty of Sao Sourenco, a city located in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais, tourists from around the world are also flocking to a coffee shop at the city center to take a sip of the local coffee, which has a history of over 100 years.

The coffee sold in Junior’s shop was grown at a farm located in the mountainous region of southern Minas Gerais, the soil and climatic conditions of which are favorable to coffee growth.

Meanwhile, Sao Lorenco is famous throughout Brazil for its natural spring water, which also helps to explain why the region produces much of the best coffee in the country.

“The coffee here has acidity and sweetness, and does not need sugar,” said Helcio Junior, director and the fourth generation coffee farmer running the coffee shop Unique Cafes.

The good quality of local coffee has greatly boosted the development of tourism in the region, said Junior, who dedicated himself after graduating from university to transforming his family business from a coffee bean exporter to a specialty coffee producer.

In 2005, a coffee sample from the farm won the first place in the “Cup of Excellence,” an annual competition held in several countries to identify the highest quality coffee produced, with a world record of 95.85 points on a scale of 0 to 100.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer and exporter of coffee. Coffee plantations are mainly located in the southeastern states of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and Parana.

According to the Brazilian Association for the Coffee Industry, every single major coffee brand uses Brazilian coffee in its blend.

However, Brazil has, for decades, oriented its export of coffee as a commodity instead of a specialty product, therefore it has lost the marketing game when it comes to promoting its own brand.

“I started to roast our own coffee in 2005, when I entered our family business,” Junior said.

“Before that, our company had only planted and produced green coffee beans, and starting to roast coffee means that our own coffee product enters the domestic market,” Junior said.

According to Junior, his family has been exporting coffee beans to Japan, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Canada, Australia and the United States.

“We have entered the Chinese market in recent four to five years, and we have opened a coffee shop in Shanghai,” he said.

Junior believes that his specialty coffee has a promising prospect in the Chinese market.

source: http://www.news.xinhuanet.com / Xinhuanet / Home / source: Xinhua / Editor: Zhou Xin / June 24th, 2017