Trung Nguyên
Encyclopedia
Trung Nguyên is a Vietnam
-based business group involved in the production, processing and distribution of coffee
. Trung Nguyên is a major domestic coffee brand within Vietnam, and exports its products to 25 countries, including major Asian markets such as Japan
and Singapore
.
It is most noted for its Trung Nguyên brand of coffee products; sub-brands include Creative Coffee, Weasel kopi luwak
and Legendee simulated kopi luwak coffee, Passiona low-caffeine coffee
, and G7 instant coffee
, along with the Tra Tien tea brand.
The group, established in 1996 in Buôn Ma Thuột
, Đắk Lắk Province, is composed of six members: Trung Nguyen Corporation JSC
, Trung Nguyen Instant Coffee Company JSC
, Trung Nguyen Coffee LLC
, G7 Commercial Services Company, Nam Việt Media Retail Company, and Vietnam Global Gateway Joint Venture Company
. Its director and CEO is Dang Le Nguyen Vu.
, and G7 instant coffee
, along with the Tra Tien tea brand. Trung Nguyên coffee products use a variety of different coffee beans, including robusta
, arabica
and excelsa.
' onMouseout='HidePop("30222")' href="/topics/Coffee">coffee
made from the beans of coffee berries
which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract
. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness.
Trung Nguyên's Legendee brand coffee is a simulated kopi luwak product, which uses synthetic enzymes to mimic the civet's gastric acid
, producing effects on flavour similar to actual kopi luwak, and reducing the need to rely on the civet, which is now endangered
in Vietnam due to excessive hunting.
In August 2010, Trung Nguyen CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu reported that the company had begun manually producing its own natural (non-simulated) kopi luwak under its Weasel sub-brand. Due to the complicated production process, only 40–50 kg
of Weasel coffee are produced annually. It is much more expensive than any of the company's other products: a 1 kg bag of Weasel coffee costs $
3000, six times higher than Indonesia
n kopi luwak. Dang has claimed, however, that Trung Nguyen's Vietnamese version is of higher quality, since production depends on wild or free range
civets who choose the best coffee beans themselves, instead of being caged and force-fed.
, established in 2005, with a capacity of 3,000 tons a year; and a tea processing plant (Tien Dat Tea Factory) in Lam Dong Province. As of 2009, a new processing plant was under construction in the city of Buôn Ma Thuột
, supported by an investment of over 40 million USD
.
s in Vietnam to distribute its products, the first of which opened in October 1998 in Ho Chi Minh City. The first coffeehouse in Hanoi opened in the year 2000, by which time 100 outlets had already been established. Throughout the following years, franchises were opened in Japan, Thailand
, Cambodia
, Malaysia and China
. The first outlets outside of Asia opened in Germany
and New York City
in the year 2006. The company's future plans include the further development of its international presence in China, the United States
and Europe
.
Product distribution in Australia
is unclear, due to a dispute between Trung Nguyên and Australian distribution company Dynamic Food Brokers, owner of the domain name trungnguyen.com.au, which claims to be a formerly authorized distributor abandoned by Trung Nguyên without notice sometime before 2008.
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
-based business group involved in the production, processing and distribution of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
. Trung Nguyên is a major domestic coffee brand within Vietnam, and exports its products to 25 countries, including major Asian markets such as Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
It is most noted for its Trung Nguyên brand of coffee products; sub-brands include Creative Coffee, Weasel kopi luwak
Kopi Luwak
Kopi luwak , or civet coffee, is one of the world's most expensive and low-production varieties of coffee. It is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract. A civet eats the berries for their...
and Legendee simulated kopi luwak coffee, Passiona low-caffeine coffee
Low caffeine coffee
Low caffeine coffee is a term that is used by coffee producers to describe coffee that has not been subjected to a process of decaffeination, but is substantially lower in caffeine than average coffee...
, and G7 instant coffee
Instant coffee
Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee and coffee powder, is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans. Instant coffee is commercially prepared by either freeze-drying or spray drying, after which it can be rehydrated...
, along with the Tra Tien tea brand.
The group, established in 1996 in Buôn Ma Thuột
Buon Ma Thuot
Buôn Ma Thuột or sometimes Buon Ma Thuat or Ban Mê Thuột, is the capital city of Dak Lak Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Its population is approximately 300,000...
, Đắk Lắk Province, is composed of six members: Trung Nguyen Corporation JSC
Joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
, Trung Nguyen Instant Coffee Company JSC
Joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
, Trung Nguyen Coffee LLC
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
, G7 Commercial Services Company, Nam Việt Media Retail Company, and Vietnam Global Gateway Joint Venture Company
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
. Its director and CEO is Dang Le Nguyen Vu.
Products
The company is most noted for its Trung Nguyên brand of coffee products. Sub-brands include Creative Coffee, WEASEL and Legendee simulated kopi luwak coffee, Passiona low-caffeine coffeeLow caffeine coffee
Low caffeine coffee is a term that is used by coffee producers to describe coffee that has not been subjected to a process of decaffeination, but is substantially lower in caffeine than average coffee...
, and G7 instant coffee
Instant coffee
Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee and coffee powder, is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans. Instant coffee is commercially prepared by either freeze-drying or spray drying, after which it can be rehydrated...
, along with the Tra Tien tea brand. Trung Nguyên coffee products use a variety of different coffee beans, including robusta
Coffea canephora
Robusta coffee is a variety of coffee which has its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa. It is a species of flowering plant in the Rubiaceae family. Though widely known as Coffea robusta, the plant is scientifically identified as Coffea canephora, which has two main varieties -...
, arabica
Coffea arabica
Coffea arabica is a species of Coffea originally indigenous to the mountains of Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula, hence its name, and also from the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia and southeastern Sudan. It is also known as the "coffee shrub of Arabia", "mountain coffee" or "arabica coffee"...
and excelsa.
Weasel (kopi luwak) coffee
Trung Nguyên is known as an important producer and distributor of Kopi luwakKopi Luwak
Kopi luwak , or civet coffee, is one of the world's most expensive and low-production varieties of coffee. It is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract. A civet eats the berries for their...
' onMouseout='HidePop("30222")' href="/topics/Coffee">coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
made from the beans of coffee berries
Coffea
Coffea is a genus of flowering plants in the Rubiaceae family. They are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia. Seeds of several species are the source of the popular beverage coffee. Coffee ranks as one of the world's most valuable and widely traded...
which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract
Digestion
Digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food into smaller components that are more easily absorbed into a blood stream, for instance. Digestion is a form of catabolism: a breakdown of large food molecules to smaller ones....
. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness.
Trung Nguyên's Legendee brand coffee is a simulated kopi luwak product, which uses synthetic enzymes to mimic the civet's gastric acid
Gastric acid
Gastric acid is a digestive fluid, formed in the stomach. It has a pH of 1 to 2 and is composed of hydrochloric acid , and large quantities of potassium chloride and sodium chloride...
, producing effects on flavour similar to actual kopi luwak, and reducing the need to rely on the civet, which is now endangered
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
in Vietnam due to excessive hunting.
In August 2010, Trung Nguyen CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu reported that the company had begun manually producing its own natural (non-simulated) kopi luwak under its Weasel sub-brand. Due to the complicated production process, only 40–50 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
of Weasel coffee are produced annually. It is much more expensive than any of the company's other products: a 1 kg bag of Weasel coffee costs $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3000, six times higher than Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n kopi luwak. Dang has claimed, however, that Trung Nguyen's Vietnamese version is of higher quality, since production depends on wild or free range
Free range
thumb|250px|Free-range chickens being fed outdoors.Free range is a term which outside of the United States denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner. In the United States, USDA regulations apply only to poultry and...
civets who choose the best coffee beans themselves, instead of being caged and force-fed.
Production and facilities
As of 2007, Trung Nguyên operated three processing facilities: a processing plant in Đắk Lắk Province, established in 2003, with a capacity of 10,000 tons of coffee a year; an instant coffee factory in Binh Duong ProvinceBinh Duong Province
Bình Dương is a province of Vietnam. It is located in the southeastern part of the country, immediately to the north of Ho Chi Minh City. The province was created from Song Be province on January 1, 1997.-Geography:...
, established in 2005, with a capacity of 3,000 tons a year; and a tea processing plant (Tien Dat Tea Factory) in Lam Dong Province. As of 2009, a new processing plant was under construction in the city of Buôn Ma Thuột
Buon Ma Thuot
Buôn Ma Thuột or sometimes Buon Ma Thuat or Ban Mê Thuột, is the capital city of Dak Lak Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Its population is approximately 300,000...
, supported by an investment of over 40 million USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
.
Distribution
Along with producing and processing coffee beans, Trung Nguyên operates a nationwide chain of over 1,000 coffee shopCoffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s in Vietnam to distribute its products, the first of which opened in October 1998 in Ho Chi Minh City. The first coffeehouse in Hanoi opened in the year 2000, by which time 100 outlets had already been established. Throughout the following years, franchises were opened in Japan, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Malaysia and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The first outlets outside of Asia opened in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in the year 2006. The company's future plans include the further development of its international presence in China, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Product distribution in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
is unclear, due to a dispute between Trung Nguyên and Australian distribution company Dynamic Food Brokers, owner of the domain name trungnguyen.com.au, which claims to be a formerly authorized distributor abandoned by Trung Nguyên without notice sometime before 2008.