Walk through Hanoi in the late afternoon and you'll notice the Bia Hoi corners. Small plastic stools appear on sidewalks, tiny tables emerge, and locals gather for what might be the city's most democratic ritual. The beer is fresh, unpasteurized, brewed daily in small batches — a process that prioritizes speed over sterility.

It's where friends meet after work, where the day's tensions dissolve into conversation and laughter.

The beer comes in one specific glass — and locals seem to prefer it that way. It's a simple vessel that has become part of the experience itself, as familiar as the ritual it serves.

Made from recycled glass with visible imperfections, these glasses carry the marks of their making. They're slightly uneven, sometimes cloudy, occasionally containing small bubbles or fragments. But perhaps that's the point — they're honest objects for an honest moment, tools for gathering and sharing the simple pleasure of cold beer on a warm evening.

Bia Hoi and its glass tells a story that reflects Vietnam itself. It weaves together foreign influences with the resourceful way Vietnamese people adapt what works and make it their own. The French likely introduced draught beer into Vietnam's vibrant street food culture.

In 1974, Le Huy Van — a Vietnamese artist trained at Kunsthochschule Burk Giebichenstein in Halle, Germany — was tasked by the government's industrial cooperative to design a specific tumbler for Hanoi's beer culture. Working from necessity and resourcefulness, he created the thick-bottomed, stackable design we know today from recycled window glass [Saigoneer].

Today, these glasses are still handmade in Xoi Tri village in Nam Dinh province through a complex hand-blowing process — heating glass to over 1000°C, forming rough cylindrical shapes, then blowing them into molds. The bluish tint, rough edges, and slight imperfections aren't design flaws but marks of their handcraft origins [More Fun Travel].

Le Huy Van understood something profound about his creation: Hanoians "love drinking beer... because they're fond of the ambiance of the pavement: hanging out with their best buddies shooting the breeze" [Saigoneer]. The glass became the perfect vessel for this particular way of being together.

In 2019, we traveled to Hanoi and became fascinated by the street culture — the textures, rhythms, and everyday objects that shape daily life. The Bia Hoi glasses, iron scissors with green rubber handles, Dep to ong sandals — each telling stories of resourcefulness and community.

We brought back 50 glasses, 10 knives, and a few scissors in a single box. Since then, we've gifted them all to friends and family, where they've become cherished everyday objects — not museum pieces, but tools for living.

The requests kept coming: emails asking where to find more glasses, people wanting to replace broken ones or share sets with friends. That's when we realized these objects carry meaning beyond their simple function — they connect us to a particular way of being in the world.

This is our way of seeing who else is into it. Sign up and we'll keep you in the loop — if enough people are curious, we'll plan another trip to Vietnam and bring back a thoughtful collection. No pressure, no deadlines, just a friendly heads-up when there's news.