Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/641418
52 STiR tea & coffee industry international / Issue 1, 2016 (February/March) The Coffee House The Workshop is a specialty coffee hangout. The Workshop California inspired Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Hamoi. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Coffee Bean, founded in the US in 1963 by Interna- tional Coffee & Tea, LLC, was purchased by Victor and Sunny Sassoon and their partner Severin Wun- derman in 1998. It now has 900 cafes in the US and 29 countries overseas. Brought to Vietnam by busi- nessman Andrew Nguyen, the company has 13 cafés in Ho Chi Minh City, 2 in Hanoi. Gloria Jean's Coffees GJC is an Australian company with 400 stores in its home country and 500 international units across 39 markets. It has 5 stores in Ho Chi Minh City. The Coffee House The Coffee House chain was created in 2014 by SeedCom, a group of young Vietnamese venture capitalists, which owns an historic tea plantation, a children's clothing store, a women's shoe store, a pizza restaurant and more. The 10-unit chain is proof that corporate ownership does not necessarily mean sameness. Each Coffee House retail unit exhibits a fresh ex- terior and interior design in keeping with its location and the bones of the existing structure. There are sharp, clean interiors with a wide variety of seating options, from long communal tables congested with laptops to intimate tables for two. The Coffee House appears to cater to lower-in- come coffee lovers and students. While menu items are beautifully presented, prices are considerably below-market, with espresso and blended iced drinks going for about $2-2.50 (all $US) and sophisticated desserts at $1.60. All coffee on offer at The Coffee House is grown and processed in Vietnam. The Workshop Specialty Coffee Created in mid-2014, this big, light, airy space is part factory, warehouse, first class lounge and chemistry lab. It's active and hive-like, but not noisy. Prominent is the coffee siphon with its glowing red-orange flame attended by a "siphonist." The Workshop is frankly avant garde, with a buzz of experimentation, barista/siphonist competitions