Coffee buzz surrounds festival

The third international coffee festival will be held in Buon Ma Thuot in the Central Highlands on March 10 - 13.

At the event, more than 160 foreign and local coffee firms will showcase their technologies, products, and services at 500 booths.

There will be an international seminar on coffee attended by representatives from the world's biggest coffee producers, including Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia.

Ethnic groups from the Central Highlands and artists from coffee-growing nations will put on performances.

Brazilian football legend Pele will be among the attendees.

Hotels, resorts make ‘best' list

Four hotels and resorts in Viet Nam have found a place in Conde Nast Traveller's 17th Annual 2011 Gold List of World's Best Places to Stay.

Sofitel Legend Metropole Ha Noi, Life Heritage Resort Hoi An, Evason Ana Mandara & Six Senses in Nha Trang, and Park Hyatt Sai Gon were the ones making the list published in the magazine's January issue.

The list was selected by readers.

Life Heritage and Evason were also among Conde Nast Traveler's 20 Best Resorts in Asia last November.

Last year the Conde Nast Traveller Readers' Choice Awards ranked Evason Ana Mandara & Six Senses eighth followed and Life Heritage Resort Hoi An, ninth.

Trekkers race to summit Ta Cu

Thousands of local and foreign visitors gathered in Tra Cu Mountain in Binh Thuan Province on Wednesday to watch a contest to trek to the top.

The 15th annual contest attracted 250 male and female athletes from Binh Phuoc, Dong Nai, Tay Ninh, Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and Binh Thuan Provinces.

The course measured 6.3km for men and 5.3km for women, including the 2,300 steps leading up to Linh Son-Truong Tho Pagoda.

Ta Thanh Xinh of Binh Thuan won the men's open division in a time of 40 minutes. Nguyen Ngoc Quang of Dong Nai and Tran Cong Binh of Binh Thuan came second and third.

In the women's division, Nguyen Thi Diem My of Binh Phuoc was first followed by Nguyen Thu Hiep of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Nguyen Thi Dung of Binh Phuoc.

Travel firms call off Egypt tours

Vietnamese travel agencies have cancelled tours to Egypt though it is the high season due to security concerns following spreading unrest in the country.

Viet Media Travel cancelled tours departing on February 4 and 5 for which 62 persons had booked.

Perfect Tour Travel and Vietravel also cancelled trips scheduled to start during Tet last week. Vietravel said it will resume the tours when the political situation in Egypt stabilises.

VN welcomes 470,000 foreigners

Viet Nam welcomed 470,000 foreign visitors in January, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 per cent, according to the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism. The largest number came from Cambodia, followed by France, China and Japan.

HCM City received 310,000 of them, a 10 per cent rise.

The figures include overseas Vietnamese, mostly from the US, Australia, and France.

2,000 cruise tourists visit Nha Trang

More than 2,000 passengers and crew on board three cruise ships visited Nha Trang on Wednesday. Minerva, a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel brought 400 passengers, mainly American tourists, Princess Dauphine (Portugal) came with 300 visitors from Australia and Europe, and Nautica (Marshall Islands) had 700 Americans.

According to Khanh Hoa Province tourism authorities, the city had also welcomed 1,800 foreign visitors on board the cruise ship Artermis (Bermuda) on February 5.

In the first five days of the lunar year – starting on February 3 — the city welcomed 96,000 visitors, including 19,000 foreigners, a year-on-year increase of 9 per cent. — VNS

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Province brews up coffee fest

HCM CITY—A coffee festival to be held in Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dac Lac in the Central Highlands, will highlight the central role of the crop in the province's and Central Highlands' economy and society.

Y Dham ENuol, Dac Lac's deputy chairman, has told the media that the four-day event starting on March 10 will promote tourism, coffee trade, and investment in the industry as well as the image of his province as a coffee city.

The opening day will be dedicated to thanksgiving for the bean and will feature a lion-dance parade and elephants carrying the coffee symbol.

Trung Nguyen Corp will display the more than 10,000 items to be housed at a World Coffee Museum it plans to build later this year in the province.

An exhibition on the coffee industry that will run through the festival will be attended by 160 companies, both from Viet Nam and overseas, who will display their products, technologies, and services at 500 booths.

There will also be performances by ethnic groups living in Tay Nguyen and art groups from coffee growing nations.

A national record for largest coffee filter will be created on March 11.

Pele, widely considered the King of Football of all time and a citizen of Brazil, the world's largest coffee growing country, will attend the festival. — VNS

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Festival to savor coffee

More than 150 Vietnamese and foreign coffee entrepreneurs will showcase their latest coffee products and technology at the third Buon Me Thuot Coffee Festival, the organizers have said.

The event will take place from March 10-14 in the Central Highlands Buon Me Thuot town.
It aims to boost the development of Vietnamese coffee exports and to promote the investment potential of Dak Lak Province.

Vietnam plans to turn the Central Highlands town of Buon Ma Thuot into the “coffee capital” of the world as part of efforts to make Vietnamese coffee better known in the world market.

Buon Ma Thuot Town in Dak Lak Province is the largest coffee growing region in Vietnam.

Under the plan, designed by Trung Nguyen Group, one of the leading coffee exporters in Vietnam, Buon Ma Thuot town will be developed into a tourist destination where visitors can learn more about coffee cultivation and the culture of drinking coffee.

The plan also focuses on promoting the town's coffee products to the world.
Coffee is one of Vietnam’s top exports, generating more than US$1 billion last year.

Vietnam is the world’s biggest grower of robusta, used in instant drinks and espressos.

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Coffee museum first placed in HCMC

Tourists take photos of the coffee display at Trung Nguyen coffee shop at Nguyen Van Chiem St., District 1. - Photo: Tuong Vi

Trung Nguyen’s Creative Youth Coffee House next to Diamond Plaza has transformed itself into a coffee museum for the next month.

The garden coffee shop that is on the narrow street between the Youth Cultural House and Diamond Plaza, has 100 items about coffee on display including grinders and roasting machines.  The pieces are part of a collection of 10,000 items about
coffee that belongs to a German coffee lover, Jens Burg.

Burg provided part of his collection to help Trung Nguyen Corp. set up Vietnam’s first coffee museum in Buon Ma Thuot in the Central
Highlands province of Daklak, where the coffee maker harvests most of its beans.

Two billion people world-wide drink coffee, so the exhibition is bound to have appeal. The displays show where coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia and follows its history with stories of different coffee concoctions using butter, milk, herbs and wine.

The café has a large outdoor area shaded by umbrellas and trees and a large glass walled lounge that looks across the garden area. In addition to the different kinds of Trung Ngu
yen coffee, there’s a food menu that features Gia Lai dried noodles, a dish that’s loved by highlanders.

The coffee museum opening in March in Buon Ma Thuot City will be called the Global Coffee Sanctuary and cover 50 hectares. Brazil, Japan, Russia, the U.K, Australia and Switzerland already have coffee museums but the sanctuary will have the largest number of items on display.

“We have made Buon Ma Thuot into a city of coffee to build the
coffee brand for the city, for Vietnam and the world,” Dinh Van Khiet, vice chairman of People’s Committee of Daklak Province, said.

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Ha Long Bay in top 10 coastal destinations

HA NOI — Ha Long Bay, in the northern province of Quang Ninh, has been listed as one of the 10 most outstanding coastal destinations for tourists to visit by the Lonely Planet Travel Guide, the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) announced.

The other nine locations were the Norwegian Fjords, the Amazon River, the Franklin River in Australia, the Quetico Provincial Park in Canada, the Kerala backwaters in India, New Zealand's Milford Sound Bay, the Greek islands, Disco Bay in Greenland, and the Galapagos Archipelago off the coast of Ecuador.

About 500 ships ply the waters of Ha Long Bay, carrying millions of tourists every year, according to the VNAT. Quang Ninh has attracted 5.3 million visitors so far this year, 2.5 million of whom visited Ha Long Bay.

First coffee museum to open in Central Highlands

DAC LAC — Viet Nam's first coffee museum will open soon in the Central Highlands city of Buon Ma Thuot.

More than 10,000 rare exhibits that illustrate the history of coffee have been transferred to the museum's proprietor – the Trung Nguyen joint stock company – from the world's biggest coffee museum owner Jens Burg of Germany.

About 100 objects from the collection are on display at Trung Nguyen Coffee, No 7 Nguyen Van Chiem Street, District 1, HCM City. Visitors are shown how coffee has been made from the beans to a cup throughout history.

"We define Buon Ma Thuot with its variety of coffee and its contribution to building Viet Nam coffee's world brand as coffee city," said Dac Lac Provincial People's Committee deputy chairman Dinh Van Khiet.

Brazil, Ethiopia, Britain, Germany and Japan have coffee museums.

Japanese floral art school to open in Ha Noi

HA NOI — A representative of the Binh Minh Technology and Trading JSC has announced its intention to open a Japanese style Ikebana floral art vocational training school at a floral art performance on Sunday.

The school will promote relations between Viet Nam and Japan and hopefully provide new jobs for Vietnamese rural labourers.

At the show, Binh Minh Co and Hanel Limited Co handed out aid to victims of the floodings in the Central provinces.

The show was sponsored by the Ha Noi People's Committee, the Japan-Viet Nam Friendship Association and Binh Minh Co.

HCM City hosts exhibition of landscape paintings

HCM City — Paintings of Viet Nam's beautiful landscapes by 12 contemporary painters are on exhibition in HCM City until next Thursday.

The paintings depict Viet Nam's landscapes in many different areas such as the old quarter in Ha Noi, Hoi An ancient town, the Central Highlands with Truong Son Mountain Range, peaceful villages in the north, and the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

The exhibition has been co-organised by the Sunwah Fund under the Sunwah Group in Hong Kong and the HCM City Fine Arts Museum.

The exhibition's organising board also holds painting courses for children, including pupils from the Nguyen Dinh Chieu School for visually-impaired children. — VNS

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Viet Nam's first coffee museum set to open

DAC LAC - Viet Nam's first coffee museum will open soon in the central- highland city of Buon Ma Thuot.

More than 10,000 rare exhibits that illustrate the history of coffee have been transferred to the museum's proprietor - the Trung Nguyen joint stock company - from the world's biggest coffee museum owner Jens Burg of Germany.

About 100 objects from the collection are on display at Trung Nguyen Coffee, No 7 Nguyen Van Chiem Street, District 1, HCM City.

Visitors are shown how coffee has been made from the beans to a cup throughout history.

"We define Buon Ma Thuot with its variety of coffee and its contribution to building Viet Nam coffee's world brand as coffee city," said Dac Lac Provincial People's Committee deputy chairman Dinh Van Khiet.

Professor Thai Quang Trung welcomed the national coffee museum.

"Coffee has two values that need to be confirmed," he said.

"It's herbal value and value to inspire people to create and develop."

Brazil, Ethiopia, Britain, Germany and Japan have coffee museums. - VNS

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Daklak produces precious civet coffee

View more pictures

Palm civet likes eating ripe coffee cherries at night. A large civet of 6 kilograms can eat up to 3 kg of coffee cherries and begin eliminating them one hour later

Photo: Tuoi Tre

World’s tastiest and most expensive, palm civet coffee, obtained from the droppings of the palm civet, has recently been produced for purely local consumption at civet farms throughout the central highland province of Daklak, Vietnam.

The palm civet is a mammal-sized omnivorous nocturnal raccoon-like animal. It has a sweet tooth for sweet red coffee cherries containing the coffee bean. The beans are digested whole after fermenting in the stomach hence acquiring the signature taste of palm civet coffee.

A large civet, which can weight up to 6 kg, can eat up to 3 kg of coffee cherries and begin eliminating them one hour later.

To make civet coffee, the coffee grains are extracted from the droppings of farm-raised palm civets and sun-dried. This procedure ensures the coffee grains their notorious fragrance.

Many people in Daklak raise palm civets to produce civet coffee as a personal hobby with the hope it will one day regain its former gourmet status.

Nguyen Quoc Khanh in Krong Buk commune, Krong Bach district is raising over 100 civets while Hoang Manh Cuong in the central highland city of Buon Me Thuot is raising 40.

“Our civet coffee is yet to be a commodity. Sometimes, we dry the beans for gifts,” said the owners of civet coffee farms Khanh and Cuong.

“Our civet farms are licensed by the city’s authorities and caged palm civets are successfully bred,” said Cuong.

In 2007, Cuong had his civet coffee analyzed by a laboratory at Hanoi Polytechnic University. Results showed a higher glucose content than in normal coffee (61.43 percent instead of 54.55 percent), hence sweeter.

He also indicated that around 600 kg of palm civet coffee cherries are currently stored in their storehouse while the current world supply of civet coffee is just 200 kilos/year. So, the coffee is a rarity and the most expensive in the market, according to Highland Coffee’s website.

It is rumored that thanks to its popularity palm civet coffee can be sold for as much as tens of million of Vietnam dongs per kilogram (VND10 million equals roughly US$500) while a freshly brewed cup of civet coffee can sell for around $9 to $11.

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