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The GDR and Vietnam: From Fake Coffee to Coffee Empire
- ggm 19d agoCoffee with Chicory? Tres Frenchy. Coffee with Chicory, Oats, and christ knows what? Not chic.
- akoboldfrying 19d agoWhat an interesting slice of history.
- deadmutex 19d agoThe article never defines GDR, but I looked it up in case you were also unfamiliar: The German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly known as East Germany, was a socialist state in Central Europe that existed from October 7, 1949, to October 3, 1990
- frantathefranta 19d agoThe German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. My parents (Czech) would almost never call it East Germany.
- spankibalt 19d agoEast German here. I have never met East Germans who called their home country Ostdeutschland before the Wende; that was very much a West German thing, and even then not as widespread as one might think (i. e. "DDR" was the much more common name amongst them). After the Wende it became (more of) a thing for Easterners as well, especially in context with the identity: Ostdeutsche(r).
- mobilio 19d agoBulgarian here - for me DDR/GDR is well known. Also FRG.
- paganel 18d agoRomanian here, the same applied here on all counts. Back in the '80s and going into the '90s we also used to name an infamous and poor Bucharest area as RFG (FRG in English), which was the capital letters of those three neighborhoods taken together as an acronym.
- holgerschurig 18d agoFun thing: some people here in Germany act like there is no East Germany. For them it is "Middle Germany". As if we still had Schlesien and Pommern ... Look at radio stations. We have SWR: Süd-West Rundfunk (south west) in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. We have WDR: Westdeutscher Rundfunk (west) in Nordrhein-Westfalen. We have NDR: Norddeutscher Rundfunk (north). In Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Hamburg (not Bremen). ... and then we have Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (middle) in Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Thüringen. And no one is in the east ...
- pestatije 18d agodon't forget Königsberg, next east german state after russian defeat in 2027
- flohofwoe 18d agoNobody wants that shithole back. Unless of course the Czechs want a harbour, in that case they can have it ;)
- avhception 18d agoOh wow, that never occurred to me! TIL.
- rob74 18d agoThe explanation for that (according to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitteldeutscher_Rundfunk#Histo...) is tradition: there was a Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from 1924 to 1934, when the geographic designation was correct, and the post-1990 MDR just continues that name. Actually, if you look at the map of German regional public broadcasters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:ARD_Karte.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_(broadcaster)#/media/File:...) and squint a bit, the MDR is more or less in the middle: more on the north-south axis and less on the east-west axis (with only the RBB partly more east), but still...
- flohofwoe 18d agoIt's the "historical" pre-WW2 name of the region. But as "Ossi" I must say the name never sat well with me and the name MDR is one of the bigger fuckups of the reunification, it's essentially revisionist bullshit
- holgerschurig 18d agoIn West-Germany we used a plethora of names: * "SBZ" -> Sowjetisch besetzte Zone -> sowjet occupied zone * "Ost-Zone" * "DDR" * "Ost-Deutschland" Almost no one spelled out "DDR" with "Deutsche Demokratische Republik", since that was a lie. There was little democracy there. People that fled from east-germany early (e.g. before the wall) usually used "SBZ "or "Zone". And it was usually meant in a derogatory sense. "DDR" was more neutral, although few people in west-germany had a neutral view on the eastern regime.
- rob74 18d agoThe funniest thing about the GDR was that its railways were still called "Deutsche Reichsbahn" ("German Imperial Railways" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germany) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Reichsbahn_(East_Germ...). Apparently they needed to keep the name in order to be able to still operate trains in West Berlin.
- shellac 18d ago> The German acronym (DDR) is much better known among Eastern Europeans. And in the UK. Presumably because it was used in athletic meetings and on cars. Never seen 'GDR', we'd just use 'East Germany'.
- nephihaha 18d agoI have seen GDR used in the UK. But then again not many people refer to North Korea by its official name here.
- i_am_a_peasant 18d agoYeah I never heard of "GDR", and I've visited the DDR museum in Berlin. My grandfather went to work in the DDR and when I was a kid in the 90s I still had all sorts of toys and things like casette recorders from the DDR. Oh man what a blast from the past that museum was.
- flohofwoe 18d agoI guess its mostly known through the "Made in GDR" label (some GDR products were actually pretty good bang for the buck, and good enough for "non-socialist" markets too).
- ngc248 18d agoI collect stamps and DDR is what I know of. The warsaw pact countries used to produce amazing stamps.
- mrweasel 18d agoI'm always confused when someone uses GDR, because to me East Germany is DDR, so GDR must be West Germany, which is it not. West Germany didn't like using BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and almost no one ever used the English version FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) so using the English version of DDR always seems confusing. Side note: I find it amusing that countries that have a need to put "Democratic" in their official name are never democratic. DR Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Why even bother, it's not like anyone is looking at the name and go: Yup, that's a democracy.
- criemen 18d agoIt's even funnier: Having both "democratic" and "republic" is redundant - by definition, a republic is democratic. Only non-democracies feel the need to double down on the democratic part.
- curmudgeon22 19d agoA fun read. It's interesting to think about the trade limitations imposed on East Germany and how those impacted daily things we take for granted.
- ValentineC 19d agoI was just in Hanoi, and some of their roasters are incredible value for money. Lots of co-fermented specialty Vietnam-grown Robusta and Liberica at incredible prices, far cheaper than what people would find from roasters that import their beans from Colombia or any of the other big coffee-growing countries.
- Kirby64 19d ago> Lots of co-fermented specialty Vietnam-grown Robusta and Liberica at incredible prices, far cheaper than what people would find from roasters that import their beans from Colombia or any of the other big coffee-growing countries. Robusta at least is substantially cheaper, because yields are better and it’s less affected by disease. I don’t know enough about Liberica to know how it yields. Also, “co-fermented coffee” generally is just code for flavored pre-roast flavored these days, especially out of Colombia. Not sure if that’s made it to Vietnam, but I’m always going to raise an eyebrow with co ferments these days. Not that they can’t be tasty, but they shouldn’t command a price premium if it’s essentially just flavored coffee in my view.
- esperent 19d agoAny co fermented coffee I've had in Vietnam has been anaerobic fermented with something else like strawberry.
- Kirby64 18d agoIf your Vietnamese coffee is co fermented with “strawberry” and actually tastes like strawberry, it’s essentially just using flavoring, not real strawberry (or, not only real strawberry).
- esperent 18d agoYes I know, it doesn't taste like strawberry, it's fermented with strawberry (or I've also seen orange, jackfruit, etc.). This is what I clearly stated, and the person above you also stated. There's no artificial flavors being added to the coffee at any decent specialty coffee shop in Vietnam, unless you specifically order some sweet flavored drink from the menu.
- latchkey 19d agoI've driven motorbikes through Dak Lak a few times. Really beautiful area. Just south of there is Da Lat and close by, there is one tiny coffeeshop run by some kids that live there that was my favorite... https://maps.app.goo.gl/PPy3c3T1oreRrDDR6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/PPy3c3T1oreRrDDR6
- wdutch 18d agoOne aspect of the story that is glossed over here is that there were very few Vietnamese people in Dak Lak prior to 1975. The OP is a story of forced displacement against the Ede and Mnong people.
- nsonha 18d agoThere is a film called "Thung Lũng Hoang Vắng" (Desolated Valley) about teachers who got posted at one of these minor communities, set in Northern Vietnam. There were programs that aimed to improve literacy and integration of these communities into modern society and it's all good in intents but the film raised questions (at least to me) on how the communist government implemented them. You brought up the people being displaced by settlements, but the film focuses on school teachers who get sent there against their will which completely changed the course of their lives. Back then almost everyone worked for the government and teachers, like soldiers, can be assigned to such outpost if they didn't have connections.
- wdutch 18d agoThanks for taking the time to reply. That's really interesting to me and I'm going to check it out!
- rurban 19d agoThe 1977 GDR coffee dilemma is wellknown. Everyone had a different name for the cheap fake coffee then. Even in West Germany the prizes made people try the fake one. But what is not wellknown to me, why both parties forbid cross partnerships, where they agreed to a longterm economic partnership.
- pestatije 19d agoGDR - german democratic republic
- holgerschurig 18d ago> West Germany attempted to isolate East Germany with the so-called Hallstein Doctrine, which amounted to a pretty solid trade embargo. The first sentence is true, and is what I know. The second economical leg of this sentence is new to me. Basically, Hallstein Doctrine was what "One China" politics is. The BRD assume that is is the sole legitimate (since democratically elected) government. For example, someone from east germany fleeing to west german already had the (west) germanship citizenship, no paperwork needed to get it. However, Hallstein doctrine had --- to the best knowledge ... very unspecified reactions. Germany e.g. stop diplomatic relationships with Cuba. But not economical ties, I know that my father continued to smoke Havanna cigars (eeeek!). They stopped diplomatic ties with Yugoslavia ... but all the Winnetou Films were recorded there, and it even became a holiday destination for west germans. Also all payments continued, it was not an economical embargo. In the case of Egypt it could be seen like that. When Egypt accepted the state-hood of east-germany, then West-Germany broke it's diplomatic ties AND stopped its economical aid. I'm not aware of it stopping buying oil from Egypt, thought. Fan fact: there is also two inverses of the Hallstein doctrine. The first one is the Ulbricht Doctrine. That doctrine mandated that socialist countries mustn't normalize their diplimatic ties to west-germany until it recognized east-germany. And the second inverse is that other countries only saw west-germany as the legal succession of the 3rd Reich and even the german empire. So it was West-Germany had hat to fulfill contracts of that time. Except for the reparations. The USSR took (or stole) more stuff from East Germany than the western allied forces took from West Germany. About 30% of the industrial infrastructure was removed, e.g. 11800 km of railway tracks. And even after they stopped removing the infrastructure itself, they still demanded a percentage of the production.
- expedition32 18d agoThe economy of the DDR was a basket case. It was the USSR that did them in when the Soviets stopped selling them oil and gas for cheap in the 1970s. Moscow was surprisingly capitalist. They noticed they could sell their resources to the West for dollars or give them away to their communist "allies".
- flohofwoe 18d ago
- boxed 18d agoHeh, it's funny how the article calls it an "embargo" when the west didn't sell coffee to the GDR, but when the Soviet Union didn't do it, it's just "decided".
- j4k0bfr 18d agoThat got a chuckle out of me too. When state secrecy and systematic incompetence get in bed together, a lot of things end up being 'decided' lol. Edit: as a massive fan of industrial and engineering history, the spotty nature of good Soviet documentation does my head in!
- the_gipsy 18d agoSeems pretty clear that "embargo" means "could/would sell for a profit" but doesn't for fear of WG's reaction, which is not the case for the USSR. It's not explicit in the article, but I would guess the USSR didn't have a strong enough coffee industry to be helping anymore.
- forinti 18d agoNeither the West nor the USSR grew coffee, though. The West wouldn't trade (or let developing countries under its influence do it) and I bet the USSR couldn't procure enough for itself and the DDR.
- shoo 18d agoExcellent article. I am a fan of approximation, but this is a great moment to pause & be thankful for access to non-ersatz coffee.
- refurb 18d agoLittle known fact - Vietnam modernized their Public Security apparatus in the late 1950s with help from GDR’s Stasi. Vietnams surveillance system, population database and use of biometrics were all adopted from the GDR.
- nsonha 18d agoAs a Vietnamese, that sounds meaningless because Vietnam never had much of a "surveillance system" nor an effective population database well into the 2000s. I have no doubt the effort was there for them to control people, but a complete lack of competency invalidated it.
- refurb 18d agoVietnam has had a security apparatus all the way down to the neighborhood block level since the 1950’s. It was low tech and relied mostly on human surveillance but it did exist. It has collected biometric information for a while and now has facial recognition in place for every single Vietnamese at this point. Combined with the camera coverage in Vietnam now I wouldn’t be surprised they can track anyone they wanted.
- nsonha 16d agoPublic security cameras are not widely deployed, like, at all. However the police state in Vietnam (the current president came from the same position Putin held before presidency) has adopt this amusing practice of showing up & demanding security footage from private houses' cameras facing the street (which, turns out to cover much more than surveillance cams could ever). More insane is them also passing a law that forbid usages of the same footages for citizen journalism purposes. This came out after someone posted a footage from their home cam recording that controversial accident when a congressman hit and kill a high-schooler unprosecuted. You can look it up.
- refurb 14d agoI’ve been paying attention to the incident you speak of since it’s so interesting to see how an authoritarian system deals with it. I was quite amazed when the father of the teenager made a statement about “maintaining harmony”. It’s right out of the stories you’d hear about life in the USSR.
- niemandhier 18d agoThis went much further: The GDR imported workers from Vietnam and even now there are sizeable Vietnamese communities e.g. in Leipzig. I interviewed a few old men who fought in the Vietnam war as child soldier, for a school project I did as a kid. Turned out: GDR did not treat this people well e.g. heavily encouraging abortion in case of a pregnancy, which was traumatic for the women. https://www.projekte.hu-berlin.de/de/migrationddr/migration-in-die-ddr-und-brd/projekte/vietnam/altes/abtreibung https://www.projekte.hu-berlin.de/de/migrationddr/migration-...
- RamblingCTO 18d ago> GDR did not treat this people well I thought this was very clear already? Your link is "yet another cruel thing the gdr did" tho and is much appreciated.
- peter_d_sherman 18d ago>"So that only left socialist countries to source coffee from, but the Soviet Union had decided to stop its coffee exports to the GDR in 1954. So the GDR regime had to buy it wherever it could and whatever the cost, spending around 150 million West German marks a year to do so. They also relied on West Germans sending their eastern pals and relatives coffee, which covered around a fifth of demand. For a long time that worked sort of okay. Coffee wasn’t always easy to get hold of. You might have to visit several shops or draw on some connections to get hold of some, but it was still proper coffee and by and large available. Then the coffee crisis of 1977 hit the world." Compare (cf.) and contrast with the U.S. of 2026 -- there's like what, 7 competing coffee shops on every block of the downtown of every major city, and in Seattle that number is at least doubled, to at least 14... in other words, we have no shortage of coffee in the U.S., quite the opposite! (Possibly we have too much coffee, if such a thing is possible, and apparently, it is! :-))
- MadrasTh0rn 17d agoI can honestly say that the history and lessons learned from the GDR should be much more available in western consciousness. There is a lot to learn and it's becoming more relevant in today's world about how states interact with each other.