We are often asked where ZUNGZA began, and the honest answer is not in any business plan. It begins at a small stream in Hoa Binh, where a child named Nguyen Diep An Linh grew up in a farming family: school in the morning, then out to the fields or up the hills with the grown-ups in the afternoon, and on free days along the water catching crabs and snails until the sky went dark.
ZUNGZA grew out of the founder's memories of the north-western mountains. The brand name reads as Rung Gia, the old-growth forest; the line beside the logo is JUNGLE AND HOUSE; and every product comes from one simple wish — to bring a little of the forest's breath into the home, through Vietnamese craft.
A stream, a piece of firewood and the smell of evening
In that region, scent arrives before shape. Morning is wet grass still holding dew, and earth after a night of rain. Midday is dry leaves warming in the sun, and resin seeping out where the bark has split. Evening has only one smell — woodsmoke from the kitchen fire, the kind that clings to your shirt and stays in your hair until the next morning.
We believe scent is the shortest door back to memory, and that is not just a feeling. The olfactory pathway runs straight to the limbic system, where the brain handles emotion and memory, so one familiar smell can call back a whole afternoon from long ago. Cam understood this long before she had a name for it: every time she caught woodsmoke, she was sitting by the fire again with her feet still wet from the stream.
From a memory to a jar of candle
Years later, living in the city, Cam found that the clearest thing missing from a closed room was smell. Air conditioning makes the air clean and even, but also flat — no layers, no story left to tell. ZUNGZA's first idea was only that small: to make something you could set on a table which, once lit, gave the room back the depth of an evening in the forest.
We chose the handmade path because it sits closest to what we want to tell. The workshop is in Van Phuc craft village, Ha Dong, Hanoi, where silk weaving has lived for generations. The soy wax is blended by ZUNGZA, the essential oils are blended by ZUNGZA, and most steps are still done by hand, so each batch carries a small difference of its own.
Three things we want to keep
The first is function. An object should do one job well, sit comfortably in the hand and in the house, and its proportions should be worked out carefully before anything decorative is discussed. The second is restraint — leaving out details that exist only to catch the eye, so the mind feels a little lighter each time you touch it. The third is staying close to nature: keeping the bare character of the material, accepting a real surface with its small spots and slightly shifting colours, because those are the marks of something alive.
We also want ZUNGZA to reach further than fragrance. Vietnamese craft holds a great many beautiful things waiting to be told properly, from rattan and bamboo weaving and household woodwork to foot-bath herbs and small decorative pieces. Our wish is to bring those gradually into more homes, and one day out into the world.
A few questions you often send us
What does ZUNGZA mean
ZUNGZA reads as Rung Gia, the old-growth forest. The line beside the logo is JUNGLE AND HOUSE and the slogan is Back to the Wild; all three speak of one single image — bringing the forest closer to the home.
Who founded ZUNGZA
The founder is Nguyen Diep An Linh, usually called Cam, born in Hoa Binh into a farming family, and now the director of ZUNGZA.
Where are ZUNGZA products made
At the workshop of Zungza Co., Ltd, no. 31, DM6, Van Phuc craft village, Ha Dong, Hanoi.
If you would like to follow this story further, there are three easy turnings: Hoa Binh and the small stream, a morning beside the Da River, and the name that reads as Rung Gia.