VietNamNet Bridge – After graduating from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, Bat Trang Village-based Le Xuan Hoang made a sudden turning point in his professional life - coming back to his hometown and opening a facility to make coffee-blended ceramic products.

Le Xuan Hoang at his shop in Bat Trang Village, Gia Lam District, Hanoi.

With a desire to bring a different and unique appearance to Bat Trang pottery, the 22-year-old man succeeded in creating decorative ceramic products blended with coffee’s aroma.

Hoang came up with an idea of connecting the sophistication of Bat Trang ceramic making and the characteristic scent of Buon Me Thuot coffee while visiting a pottery fair in Buon Ma Thuot City, which is known as the capital of coffee, when he was a first-year student.

It is a headache for Hoang to tightly glue coffee beans onto ceramic products’ surface while keeping the shining colour of the beans.

After coming back to Ho Chi Minh City, he started to learn how to glue coffee beans onto Bat Trang-made pottery products.

As Bat Trang products had been decorated with wooden patterns before, Hoang did not think that it would be difficult to make his idea come true. But the reality was far different from his thought. His first experiments failed when he tried to paste coffee beans into the surface of ceramic products. However, the tests helped him realise that the key to the issue lay with the coffee beans themselves.

Coffee beans are carefully selected and equal in dimension.

He found that unless the bean was totally dried and well-treated with oil, it will shrink and lose adhesion.

It took him two years and a lot of money to find out the secret to dealing with the issue. Each coffee bean is carefully selected and roasted to create a fragrant smell and beautifully black colour.

High-quality coffee beans, which are brought from Buon Ma Thuot city, should measure no less than 7 millimetres each and they should be equal in dimension to make it easy for the worker to paste them on the product’s surface.

It takes time to make a coffee-blended pottery product, particularly in the step of selecting coffee beans to glue onto it. After completing the gluing of coffee beans and wooden patterns, the products are put under treatment against termite and wood-eater and to keep the perfume of coffee.

Following the success, Hoang went further to make coffee-blended products decorated with wooden patterns.

Such products are priced around VND 200,000 (US$9.4), depending on the size.

When his products were first introduced to the market, Hoang thought that they would surely attract customers for their uniqueness. However, although his booth drew many visitors at the Buon Me Thuot pottery fair, it was also the most unsellable, as none of his 200 products was sold.

Hoang also tries to work on wooden material to bring a new look to traditional ceramic products.

The unsuccessful debut made him feel disappointed but not discouraged. He told himself that he was young and he had many chances ahead to try and that there were always lessons learnt from failure.

Fortune smiled on him when he brought his products to a fair hosted by the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK, where his unique products drew much attention from foreigners. This helped him earn first order to Dubai when he came back to Vietnam.

The aroma of coffee on Hoang’s products can be preserved for three years.

His products have been exported to European countries and China. His products have sold so well that sometimes he has had to reject customers’ orders because of insufficient inventory.

It encourages him to try harder to advertise his products and expand his export market.

Although the way ahead for Hoang to win customers’ hearts is still challenging, he is ready to embrace the obstacles and nurture his love for the profession. Thanks to Hoang and those who still hold passion for the country’s traditional values, Bat Trang pottery’s prestige has been preserved and uphold.

Nhan Dan/VNN