The current price of raw coffee beans is barely 3,000 VND per kilogram, while coffee powder is being sold by traders for as much as 160,000 VND per kilogram. In the Central Highlands, farmers are cutting down their coffee trees to plant corn instead—yet in the cities, coffee shops are springing up like mushrooms.
In Ho Chi Minh City, coffee is everywhere: sidewalk cafés, air-conditioned cafés, garden cafés, student cafés, cafés for seniors—even cafés that don’t actually sell coffee! The variety of coffee on offer is equally diverse. Once, Saigon residents were familiar only with the basics—black coffee, iced coffee, coffee with milk. Now, menus list Robusta, Arabica, civet coffee, Brazilian blends, and more.
Prices vary depending on the establishment.
Mr. Võ Văn H., representative of the M. coffee brand in Ho Chi Minh City, explained that his company offers only a single grade of coffee because, in his view, there should be no discrimination among customers.
The difference, he said, lies only in the roasting style to suit regional tastes; the quality is consistent across the board. Dividing coffee into multiple grades with sharply different prices, he added, is simply a tactic to inflate prices under the guise of reasonableness.
According to him, with civet coffee selling at 160,000 VND per kilogram, once it is brewed and sold by the cup it can bring in up to 360,000 VND—a figure that would make coffee growers weep.