After spending several days enjoying locally produced coffee across Vietnam, we ended up at one of Hanoi’s most iconic hotels for a few days. This was the hotel where the infamous get-together of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un from North Korea took place on its garden terraces!
However, instead of enjoying more local coffee, the hotel was offering…. shock horror…Nespresso capsules from an automatic Nespresso machine! Hats off to the marketing department of Nestle who have managed to convince high-end hotels in coffee-producing countries to purchase mediocre coffee capsules from Switzerland .
How can this be possible? Such a hotel will pay the equivalent of around EUR 80 to 90 a kilo for such coffee (which will likely include the lease of the automatic capsule machine). Surely it would make more sense to purchase a few expensive specialty coffees at around EUR 30-40 per kilo (probably less for a good Vietnamese arabica coffee) and pay a full-time barista to extract it from a good Italian coffee machine?
The result? 1. Offering an excellent locally produced Vietnamese coffee to promote your country (Italians would never serve a coffee not roasted in Italy!) 2. Serving coffee connoisseurs at your hotel a decent coffee they will enjoy drinking, and 3. Doubling your margins on coffee sold. It’s a no-brainer!
3/10
