Koi fish coffee in HCM City catches foreign media attention

HCM City (VNA) – Some coffee shops in Ho Chi Minh City are trying to give customers a unique experience by relaxing in the tranquil surrounding of a koi fish pond while drinking their favourite cup of coffee.

“When it comes to fish-themed cafes, Ho Chi Minh City has a leg up on pretty much every other city in the world,” wrote odditycentral.com, a blog about oddities from around the world.

“Imagine enjoying a hot cup of java or your favourite soft drink in the middle of a pond filled with beautiful koi fish that you can actually hand-feed and you get an idea of what Vietnam’s koi fish cafes are like,” it wrote.

Koi Melody Café, located at Tan Phu district’s Tay Thach ward, is one of the city’s newest koi fish cafes, having only been open for about a year. It shares the same basic recipe as most of the Vietnamese city’s koi fish cafes. The coffee shop consists of a shallow pond filled with colourful koi fish and dotted with small islands where patrons can enjoy various drinks and treats.
King Koi Coffee Garden in Tan Phu district’s Tan Quy ward is another relatively new, but already extremely popular koi fish cafe inspired by the design of Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. It features around 10 interconnected circular islands in a pond filled with koi fish that you can literally bend over and touch.

Locating at District 7’s Tan Thuan Dong Ward, New Koi Coffee has a similar design as Koi Melody. It covers over 1,500 sq.m.

Dao Koi Coffee Garden is an outdoor koi cafe dubbed an island in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. It provides a green space for people amid the scorching sun of the summer and is a popular destination for families, as it regularly hosts entertainment programmes for children.

There are numerous places where you can both sip a cup of coffee, feed the fish and take pictures with many unique garden landscapes including Queen Koi Coffee Garden, KOI Sakura Coffee, KOI Coffee Garden ISLAND, or Royal Koi Garden Coffee.

HCM may not be the only city in Vietnam, or even in the world that has this type of venue, but it has the most koi café than anywhere.

Koi fish, known as Nishikigoi in Japan, was created from cross-breeding by Japanese people over 200 years ago. They are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation. Some of the major colors are white, black, red, orange, yellow, blue, and cream

The fish has many different names depending on their colours and characteristics. These include Komonryu, Koromo, Showa Sanshoku, Kohaku, Sanke, Showa, Ogon, Kin-Showa, Kujaku, Hi-Utsuri and Shusui.

Koi can live up to 35 years in an artificial pond, but perhaps a hundred years in a natural aquatic environment. If raised well, they can grow by about 10cm a year and a mature Koi will have a body length of up to 90cm.
Farmers in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, have engaged in the farming of ornamental Japanese koi fish and Japanese carp following an incentive programme launched by the city.

The programme, which was implemented by the city's agricultural extension centre, encourages local farmers to raise the two breeds of fish.

Due to its suitable water and soil quality, Binh Chanh District is being developed into a specialised resource area for farming these two ornamental fish species.

More than 20ha in the district have been dedicated for the purpose of koi and carp farming, according to the centre./.