A Vietnamese drip filter with the Highlands Coffee logo.
Highlands Coffee is a Vietnamese coffee shop chain and producer and distributor of coffee products, established in Hanoi by Vietnamese American David Thai in 1998. The founding of the Highlands Coffee company marked the first time an Overseas Vietnamese was able to register a private company within Vietnam. As of 2009, the company operated 80 coffee shops in six cities and provinces across Vietnam.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Thai, the company's founder, witnessed the rise of the Starbucks coffee chain from a small company in his hometown of Seattle to a multinational corporation. He later cited this as the inspiration behind the founding of Highlands Coffee, which first began operation in Hanoi in 1998. The company's initial registration marked the
