By Arno Maierbrugger

Gulf Times Correspondent
Bangkok

Middle Eastern coffee lovers who are curious about the taste of weasel coffee, the most expensive coffee brew in the world, will no longer have to venture to Vietnam where the delicacy is highly popular and broadly sold in coffee shops. Instead, a Vietnam company now brings weasel coffee and other unique Vietnamese gourmet coffee brands to the Middle East.

Trung Nguyen Group, Vietnam’s largest coffee chain and the “Vietnamese answer to Starbucks”, last week entered a franchise agreement with Dubai-based Global Hotels Management to open two coffee shops in the emirate by next year with the option of opening more. The company also plans to expand to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Pakistan, in addition to entering distribution agreements with airlines, supermarkets and hotels. Over the next five years, Trung Nguyen expects to open around 100 coffee shops in the region.

According to George Economou, head of Trung Nguyen’s international division, the UAE, especially Dubai, as well as the wider Middle East “are a strategic market and an important target for Trung Nguyen” to market the company’s brand name and high quality of Vietnamese coffee on a global scale.

The unique sales proposition of Trung Nguyen is its highly regarded natural weasel or civet coffee (also called kopi luwak throughout Asia and ca phe chon in Vietnam), which is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten – ideally – by the Asian Palm Civet or other related civets, then pass through the animal’s digestive tract and are collected thereafter, thoroughly washed, dried in the sun, lightly roasted and brewed. The result is a highly aromatic coffee without the usual bitterness of ordinarily roasted beans.

Due to this elaborate production process, 1kg of weasel coffee beans goes for around $3,000, by far the highest price for coffee worldwide. However, Trung Nguyen states that although the coffee is expensive, a cup of brewed civet coffee actually costs less at its outlets than an average cup of brewed coffee bought at a coffee shop like Starbucks because the company is able to buy the weasel-digested beans in bulk from several Asian producers at “exceptional value”.

There is also a synthetic variant of weasel coffee offered by Trung Nguyen called Legendee, in addition to a number of other original Vietnamese coffees and blends.

Trung Nguyen started in 1996 and has become one of only a few Vietnamese brands that have gained international recognition. It is also at the forefront of boosting Vietnam’s coffee exports.

Vietnam is a major coffee producing country and currently the second largest global exporter of coffee behind Brazil. The country’s coffee exports last year reached a record value of $3.6bn while industry experts say there is still high growth potential.

Trung Nguyen has grown to over 1,000 coffee shops in its home land Vietnam. Over the past years, rapid global expansion has brought the chain to Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and China. First outlets outside of Asia were opened in Germany and New York City. Last year, Trung Nguyen revealed plans to open shops in Seattle, US, the home turf of its main rival Starbucks, just after Starbucks debuted in Ho Chi Minh City in January 2013.