Once discarded as agricultural waste, the outer fruit of coffee cherries is finding new purpose in Vietnam’s sustainable beverage industry. Coffee exporter Phúc Sinh has partnered with more than 1,600 farming households in Sơn La Province to produce cascara tea—a drink made from the dried husks of ripe arabica coffee.
After four years of experimentation, Phúc Sinh launched its first cascara products in 2023 and built a 100 billion VND processing plant capable of producing one ton of finished tea per day. Though still niche, the market for cascara is expanding globally, projected to reach $1.32 billion by 2032. For Vietnam’s coffee industry, it represents both an environmental opportunity and a new path toward sustainable value creation.
This article is a condensed and translated summary (original in Vietnamese, VN) of a feature published in the March 2024 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek Vietnam.