Vu Dinh Thu left a lucrative career in finance to open a coffee shop without telling her parents, joining a wave of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs using espresso to counter family expectations of work.
Coffee, traditionally drunk black and sometimes with condensed milk or eggs, has long been an integral part of Vietnamese culture.
But starting a cafe is not the kind of career many parents in Vietnam’s growing ambitious middle class would choose for their children.
Vietnamese coffee entrepreneur rejects traditional career path
“At first, my family didn’t know much about this,” Tu, 32, told AFP. “Slowly they became aware, but they weren’t very cooperative.”
Mr. Tu’s parents repeatedly tried to persuade him to stay in his well-paying investment banking job. But he persevered and opened four Refined branches in Hanoi over the course of four years.
The atmosphere is more like a cocktail bar than a cafe, and the cafe is crowded with coffee lovers enjoying Vietnamese Robusta beans from morning till night.
His parents “saw how much work it takes to run a business, dealing with everything from finance to staffing, and they didn’t want me to struggle,” Thu explained. .
Vietnam was desperately poor until the early 2000s, but a boom in manufacturing has helped it bounce back, and many parents encourage their children to climb the social ladder by entering stable, lucrative careers such as medicine or law. I’m thinking of seeing it.
Meanwhile, coffee has become synonymous with creativity and self-expression.
Just like an “artist”
According to Sarah Grant, an associate professor at the University of California, in Vietnam, “cafés have become a way to break the norm against family pressures to do well in school, go to college, and earn a degree.” ”. State University.
“It’s also become a space of possibilities where we can bring together creative people into a community, like graphic designers, musicians, and other do-it-yourself types,” says Grant, an anthropologist who specializes in Vietnam.
Coffee first arrived in Vietnam in the 1850s under French colonial rule, but in the 1990s and early 2000s, the country became a coffee-producing powerhouse thanks to a shift to large-scale production of Robusta, which is commonly found in instant beer. It became the world’s second largest exporter.
Grant told AFP that his passion for the coffee business is often tied to its history.
She added that coffee entrepreneurs are “really proud that Vietnam is a coffee-producing country and a big force in the global market.”
In a small alley in the heart of the capital, 29-year-old Nguyen Thi Hue mixes cold beer with lychee matcha in her new glass-walled shop. Slow Bar is a one-woman coffee shop.
“When I make coffee, I feel like an artist,” Hue said. Hue first had coffee when he was young thanks to a neighbor who roasted it for him.
But coffee is also very trendy, and cafes can make money by appealing to the selfie-loving Gen Z crowd.
“No one dresses poorly to go to a cafe,” Hue says. She herself is decked out in stylish light blue-rimmed glasses and a matching tie.
Coffee is a “serious career”
Dan Le New Quynh, a 21-year-old college student relaxing at a nearby rival store, is a typical new-age customer. For her, the style of the cafe is more important than the beer.
“I don’t really like coffee,” she admits.
According to brand consulting firm Mibrand, Vietnam’s coffee shop industry is worth $400 million and is growing by up to 8% annually.
Vu Thi Kim Oan, a lecturer at Vietnam’s RMIT University, said there are thousands of shops that are not officially registered with authorities.
“If we have problems with our office jobs, we think about quitting and making money together…picking one location, renting a house, and then opening a coffee shop,” she said.
“If it works, keep going. If it doesn’t, you change.”
Global brands have struggled to gain a foothold, with Starbucks accounting for just 2% of the market in 2022, according to Euromonitor International.
Earlier this year, the company announced it would close its only store selling specialty beer in Ho Chi Minh City.
Unlike most local ventures, the coffee giant uses only “high-quality” Arabica beans, which have a distinctly different flavor from Vietnam’s Robusta.
In Tu’s case, he plans more stores, hoping to eventually get his parents back and create a workforce that loves coffee as much as he does.
“I want to develop the mindset that this is a serious career,” he said.
This article was published via AFP Relaxnews.
(Main image and featured image: Nhac Nguyen/AFP©)
Information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
