Mr Lam Boi Minh cycles more than 15 km daily, delivering coffee throughout Saigon, building a business worth 400 million USD and transferring to expand the chain after 55 years.

"If you're hungry, look for a job," Mr. Lam Boi Minh described the first days of starting his career. The profession of making tea was originally his father's. His childhood days in and out of the factory helped form the concept of tea leaves and coffee beans. In 1968, when he turned 16 years old, he worked at a freight station. At this time, he was inspired, gradually fell in love with the taste of tea and started a business selling tea leaves and roasted coffee beans. After working hours, he returned to open a shop selling tea and coffee ingredients. Today's stall was just a cart on Chau Van Liem Street, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City.

Tea industry dream

In 1975, he opened a second store at 307 Le Van Sy, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. Besides selling tea leaves and coffee beans, the shop also has another drink - filter coffee. A few years later, he moved the selling point to Le Van Sy Street and maintained it for over ten years.

He and an employee own the shop, responsible for everything from buying ingredients to roasting and delivering. Under the hot Saigon sun, every day, he had to cycle to District 6 to pick up goods and then deliver them everywhere in the city. Once, I pedalled to Le Van Sy bridge and my shirt was soaked with sweat. To avoid being embarrassed by the shop owner, he stood on the bridge to let the wind dry his clothes before pedalling again.

Waiting for the shop owner to pay, he had the capital to buy ingredients for the next day. One day, the beggar asked for a debt, and Mr. Minh could only sadly leave. Day by day, he accumulated capital, rented a small corner at the back of Le Van Sy market, roasted and ground coffee himself and made deliveries. He stood in the roasting pan himself; each batch took over an hour to roast more than 120 kg of coffee. His hands wanted to fall apart because he was tired, but he kept trying.

In 1980, Mr Lam Boi Minh tested a new model: machine-brewed coffee, sold at 63 Mac Thi Buoi. The store is only 9 square meters, but this place marked Phuc Long's milestone in entering the F&B industry. The brand achieved many important milestones from here throughout its future development journey.

Store at 63 Mac Thi Buoi (taken in 1980) - the place that marked the company's milestone entering the F&B industry. Photo: Phuc Long

In the 90s, the founder and his team continuously improved products and expanded branches. In 2007, Phuc Long developed tea hills in Thai Nguyen. At the same time, it invested in a tea and coffee processing factory in Binh Duong to ensure quality raw materials, serve the domestic market and meet export needs.

From traditional cups of tea to creative drinks

To make tea, he bought raw tea and sorted it himself. In front of him, he placed nearly 10 baskets and carefully divided them into each type: bran, large wings - small wings - 3 -10 cups; the finer the leaves, the tastier. For each type of material, he packages and prices it separately. The best tea is soaked, brewed by hand, and combined with syrup to create fruit tea.

Mr. Lam Boi Minh - Founder of Phuc Long.

With constant creativity, Mr Lam Boi Minh researches to turn traditional tea into a unique drink suitable for modern trends and young people's preferences. He uses fresh whole-leaf tea to brew the essence and mix it with fruit and syrup to create rich, fragrant drinks. The processing method still follows the manual process from sifting to brewing and steeping the tea by hand to extract the bitter taste, aroma, and characteristic astringency, but is immediately followed by the sweet aftertaste. The selection process from planting to screening, drying tea, and then self-producing syrup according to its formula to optimize quality, according to the criteria set by the founder: self-production - self-consumption (production - consumption) ensures the best quality and freshest. This is his secret to creating unique, interesting and quality drinks.
When asked why he was able to create these drinks, Mr Lam Boi Minh said: "Vocational training". In his time, there were no schools to teach tea making or roasting and selecting coffee; there was only life school to gain experience. He roasts so much coffee that just by smelling it, you can tell what type it is, what region it comes from, what roasting rate it is, and whether it was just ground yesterday or has been stored for a month. Tea is the same, with hands sifting and brewing tea for more than five decades while making and deducing, imagining the formulas and combinations to create the most complete and unique taste.

Phuc Long fruit tea (peach, lychee, and herbal tea) has just been born and has created a fever. Business is expanding day by day, attracting market attention.

A turning point for further efforts

In 2012, Phuc Long affirmed its position in the food and beverage (F&B) sector by opening a store at Crescent Mall, an important turning point in its development journey. Here, Phuc Long switched to a self-service model in a modern space and attracted customers' attention. Over the next decade, the brand expanded slowly with the motto: "Quality comes from passion". From two stores in the 80s, four decades later, Phuc Long reached the milestone of 70 stores.

Phuc Long store at Crescent Mall today. Photo: Phuc Long

In mid-2020, Mr Lam Boi Minh transferred the Phuc Long brand to a corporation with a larger scale and vision. This decision is meaningful in Phuc Long's development, changing how this brand operates and develops.
Founder Phuc Long believes that with the vision and scale of the group, Phuc Long will become a symbol of Vietnamese tea and coffee brands worldwide. He aims to maintain the core values and traditional flavours combined with a modern enjoyment style, bringing the product to more users.

Also read: Masan owns 20% of Phuc Long tea & coffee store chain

"The transfer of the Phuc Long brand marks a new phase, helping the brand continue to develop, bringing the unique flavours of Vietnamese indigenous drinks to tea and coffee lovers on all continents; that is the heart of my wish," said Mr. Lam Boi Minh.

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