What you don’t know about Vietnamese coffee

A market research, which shows that Vietnamese people are very proud of having a cup of coffee “strong, bitter, dense that foreigners cannot drink”…but what is the reality???

Originally, coffee was usually drunk hot. With their easy-going drinking habits, people switched to drinking iced coffee. From here, pure coffee was no longer popular: in ice, it was diluted and not bitter enough, and the aroma was inhibited by low temperatures. And so manufacturers found every way to increase the bitterness and aroma. Coffee is processed as follows: by adding high doses of quinine to coffee.

A very cheap and effective method. Mix high concentrations of artificial flavoring into coffee to increase the aroma. In terms of health, this is not too harmful, if there is no flavor-holding substance, which is gelatin. Gelatin is originally produced from the skin and bones of buffalo and cows, and is very expensive when it meets food standards. But people have used much cheaper Chinese gelatin. And this is obviously not suitable for food, because it contains a lot of preservatives. Quinine has long been used as a bittering agent in food, and in small amounts it is generally safe.

However, the amount of quinine used in coffee in Vietnamese coffee establishments is around 0.06~0.08 g/kg of finished product, or around 0.0015g~0.002g per filter. At this level, long-term coffee drinking will lead to cinchonism symptoms, or quinine poisoning, including skin allergies, tinnitus, dizziness, hearing loss, and many other opportunistic symptoms. Compared to the way of drinking coffee in the West, Vietnamese coffee is drunk in a casual way:

Each filter of coffee brews about 40 ml, poured into a glass of ice about 180 ml. And it is the ice that is the source of all disasters. A cup of pure coffee is not bitter enough to feel the bitterness in that amount of ice. Low temperatures will inhibit the evaporation of natural coffee aroma. And it is not viscous enough to not be diluted in that amount of ice water. Therefore, to complete a glass of iced coffee includes 3 things:

1. Increase the bitterness of the coffee.

2. Increase the aroma of the coffee, and

3. Increase the viscosity of the coffee.

The traditional processing method is as follows:

· To increase the bitterness, people often use roasted areca nuts.

· To increase the aroma, people often use fish sauce.

· To increase the viscosity, people use caramelized sugar.

On the production facilities’ side, they think:

– when the most important quality indicators of coffee, bitterness, aroma, and viscosity, are all fake, why should they use real coffee?

– As for the drinkers, when they are used to quinine and caramelized sugar, they lose the ability to enjoy truly delicious coffee. And so the Vietnamese, for the most part, nod in front of a black cup of soy or popcorn, mixed with caramel, flavoring, quinine and think they are drinking the “most culturally unique” coffee in the world.

– one last point, if a cup of Vietnamese coffee makes you feel nauseous and your heart beats fast, it is likely quinine poisoning and not the stimulating effect of coffee on the brain.

Collected.