The origin of “mixed coffee”

Vietnamese coffee culture is entering a new, rich and progressive period. It can be said that when there are more and more choices of how to drink coffee, more people make coffee, and the quality of authentic coffee is given due attention. A series of articles exposing and condemning dirty coffee have appeared. Along with it is the movement to make pure coffee.

Before discussing coffee choices, or talking more about the pure coffee movement that has emerged in recent years, we need to have a general and correct view of the origin of impure coffee.

The root of mixing coffee with other ingredients is actually a very understandable thing. For a long time, coffee has become an indispensable habit in daily culture. It can even be said that coffee is the lifeblood of human life. Therefore, during difficult times in history, when coffee was no longer available, people were forced to find ways to create things that resembled coffee, had the taste of coffee by mixing coffee with many ingredients or completely replacing it with other ingredients.

When the world entered two major wars, World War I and World War II, necessities became scarce, leading to a series of substitutes being born, in which coffee was replaced with acorns or roasted beans. During World War II, Germany was cut off from the supply of coffee, at which time real coffee was only available on the black market at an exorbitant price. Germans were forced to drink another drink called Ersatzkaffee, also known as Muckefuck, the name comes from the French “Mocca faux” which means fake coffee. Ersatzkaffee is roasted from chicory root, malt, barley, rye, oak nuts… In the US, although the Postum Cereal Company denied that their Postrum product was a coffee substitute, sales still skyrocketed during World War II, when coffee was rationed and consumers had to look for a substitute.

The French first introduced coffee to Vietnam in 1857, and it began to be grown in small areas in the North for export to France. It was not until the early 20th century that coffee trees were widely grown and developed in some French plantations in Phu Quy (Nghe An), and some places in the Central Highlands. After the country was unified in 1975, the total coffee area in Vietnam was somewhere around 10,000 hectares. At that time, coffee was one of the strategic commodities that the State had a monopoly on exporting. Therefore, all coffee circulating outside was considered contraband. It is possible to imagine that after nearly 100 years of being familiar with coffee, suddenly one day it is no longer available as before. The habit of drinking coffee is very difficult to break, so “innovations” to create something similar to coffee were born.

Vietnamese coffee culture has been formed for nearly a century. Photo of Saigon sidewalk coffee in 1961.

Initially, coffee roasters mixed in bad coffee beans because they were cheaper and easier to ignore at checkpoints. However, when these beans became scarce, people thought of mixing in the thick coffee husk, after all, it still had a little coffee flavor in it.

That’s the origin of mixed coffee. There are many reasons why it was maintained afterwards. First of all, it is due to the habits of roasters and drinkers. Drinkers have become accustomed to the taste of the coffee substitute, and roasters have to continue to maintain the mixing to satisfy that habit. Or maybe the opposite, the mixing of ingredients into coffee is maintained due to habit or profit, so drinkers have to continue to get used to the taste of that coffee-like drink. Another reason is that most people like to hang out in cafes and chat, but many of them are not coffee addicts and cannot drink coffee. And so “coffee” is made from brewed coffee grounds, “coffee” made from black popcorn kernels. People also boil areca nut water to get tannins to add to increase the bitterness of the coffee. The coffee at that time was always thick or black, rich and very bitter.

Another reason that appeared later explains why people do not make pure coffee. That is because Vietnamese people do not have the right roasting technique to bring out the most delicious original flavor of coffee. Therefore, pure coffee is very difficult to drink when brewed. After brewing with a filter and adding ice, the cup of pure coffee has a very unattractive color, and the aroma has long since disappeared. Unable to improve the roasting and grinding process, people find ways to add butter, caramel or some other ingredient to create a fragrant cup of coffee. However, initially, mixed coffee only added natural ingredients. In a positive sense, it is just a type of low-class coffee, or a type of coffee with impurities from soybeans or corn kernels. People who are familiar with the thick coffee that has been passed down from the past can go to old cafes in Hanoi, with their own unique, family-made blending formula. The remaining, a very large percentage, is coffee mixed with chemicals and by-products, following an extremely unsanitary roasting and grinding process.

If in the world, after overcoming the scarcity period, coffee is returned to its original flavor, and the substitute products are used for other purposes; then in Vietnam, from that understandable cause, a harmful habit that is difficult to change has been formed. People have become accustomed to and accepted a drink that is temporarily called “coffee-like”. It could be soybeans to make the “coffee” more fatty and thick; burnt popcorn to make the “coffee” black and bitter; foaming agents in soap to make us feel like we are drinking real coffee, and many unexpected chemicals.

So the reason for maintaining the production of impure coffee today is different. Only a small branch still maintains the habit of mixing coffee with other ingredients, the rest is due to the desire for profit. Most of the “coffee” on the market today is properly called “dirty coffee” and not simply “mixed coffee” anymore. The so-called “coffee varieties” have become toxic because many chemicals have been added, including inorganic and harmful chemicals. It is not an exaggeration to say that coffee drinkers are being poisoned by unethical and profit-seeking coffee makers. Many articles and coffee-loving communities are trying to warn about dirty coffee, calling on users to consciously learn about the type of coffee they are used to drinking, first of all for their health, and then for a cultural value that deserves to be properly recognized. So, immediately spend some time with Google search and type in the keywords “pure coffee”, “dirty coffee”, or some similar phrase!

Collected.