Drinking coffee has become a daily habit for many people. Yet few realize that the cup of coffee in their hand may in fact be brewed from nothing more than scorched corn or soybeans—later “marinated” in a cocktail of harmful chemicals and additives.
After several days of investigating coffee-processing methods, we were left genuinely shaken.
Drinking Burnt Corn and Soybeans
When I met Mr. V, the owner of a large coffee shop in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, he asked me the current price of raw coffee beans.
“About 50–55,000 VND per kilogram,” I replied.
He immediately pointed out a paradox:
“As a journalist, you should find out why, even with coffee beans costing that much, many coffee brands come here offering roasted coffee powder at only 55–60,000 VND per kilogram.
As far as I know, one kilogram of raw beans yields only 0.7 kg of roasted coffee powder, and that doesn’t even count labor, branding, packaging, marketing, and transportation costs.”
To prove his point, Mr. V showed me a stack of advertising packets from various coffee brands. Following his lead, we went to Đồng Nai—long known as a center for coffee production and processing that supplies not only the Southeast region but other provinces across the country and even Cambodia.
After much searching, we finally met Mr. C, a well-known coffee-blending technician in Biên Hòa, Đồng Nai. Just by sipping a small cup of black coffee (without sugar or ice), Mr. C could identify the exact “marinating formula,” and he could reproduce it almost perfectly. Many coffee companies had hired him; some even bought all the necessary equipment and ingredients for him to blend their coffee.
However, Mr. C eventually refused such offers because the owners, driven by high profits, insisted on using excessive amounts of toxic chemicals—some of which, he warned, could cause cancer.
“If I followed them I’d make a lot of money, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “If I make coffee that I wouldn’t dare drink myself, how could I serve it to others? Drinking it would mean bringing harm into my own body.”
A practitioner of traditional herbal medicine, Mr. C spends much of his time treating people for free. When we first asked him to help us investigate modern coffee blending methods, he hesitated, calling the field “sensitive and complicated,” likely fearing trouble. He only remarked:
“Few coffee farmers ever get rich, but paradoxically coffee companies, large and small, all make plenty of money.”
Days later, seeing our persistence, Mr. C finally agreed to meet again at his own café. He served us two cups: one brewed from 100 % real coffee, and another containing a typical blend.
“Every day,” he explained, “marketers from numerous coffee companies come here offering free samples. If I approve, they deliver the goods right to my door.”
Tasting the two cups, I immediately noticed striking differences in flavor and even in color.
“Today in Vietnam,” Mr. C continued, “it’s impossible to count how many places produce coffee powder. But a significant amount is actually made from corn and soybeans. There’d be no real harm if these were processed normally, but instead they’re roasted until completely black—like charcoal—before being soaked in additives and packaged for sale.”
The “Pick-and-Shovel” Technology
According to Mr. C, with coffee prices as they are, producing one kilogram of genuine coffee powder—including drying, grinding, packaging, labeling, and labor—must cost at least 100,000 VND.
“So if someone sells coffee powder for 55–60,000 VND per kilo, it can only be corn or soy,” he said. “Right now corn costs about 8–9,000 VND/kg and soy about 13,500 VND/kg. Selling that mix for 55–60,000 VND means enormous profits.”
Preying on café owners’ desire for cheap supplies and higher margins, countless coffee brands have sprung up, flooding the market with dubious products.
Mr. C showed us a dozen different coffee packets brought by sales reps. “Call the phone numbers on some of these packages,” he said, “and you’ll hear only a dead line—or find that the address doesn’t even exist.”
“Depending on whether a café is high-end or not, and on the owner’s taste, suppliers will adjust the formula of coffee, soybeans, and corn,” he explained. “More frightening is that in order to make the product look and taste like real coffee, they mix in a cocktail of chemicals and additives—many of them harmful—such as CNC powder (a thickening agent), white foaming agents, caramel for color and flavor, milk flavoring, cocoa essence, coffee essence, industrial margarine, artificial sweeteners, and vanilla powder.”
All these chemicals, we learned, can be purchased at Kim Biên chemical market in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City. “Without these substances,” Mr. C said, “corn and soybean powder could never be disguised as coffee.”
The small, makeshift coffee-powder workshops use what he calls “pick-and-shovel technology,” comparable to the crude methods of producing fake fertilizer. “With an investment of just 10 million VND you can buy a drum to roast corn and soybeans, and for only 1.5–7 million VND you can get a grinder capable of producing about 200 kg per day,” he explained. “Starting a fly-by-night coffee ‘brand’ costs little, yet the profits are huge.”
If operators work quietly inside their homes, he added, they are virtually undetectable. As a result, the quality of coffee on today’s market is, in effect, left completely unregulated.