The Vietnam Coffee Guy
I came to Vietnam to look for coffee.
Well, not the first time.
The first time I came to Vietnam it was to meet my grandparents.
I was born and raised in the United States, and I’m just about as culturally American as anyone else born and raised there. But my mom is Vietnamese, so I was also raised in that cultural context.
Today I live in Vietnam, having gone back and forth something like five times.
At the end of 2012, I came here with a different purpose: I wanted to know if the heirloom varietals of arabica brought here by Europeans were still around.
Back in 2012, Vietnamese coffee was synonymous with robusta, and, in the mass market context, with a sugary milk-based beverage found in Vietnamese bakeries all over the world.
I knew that I’d have a bit of an uphill climb to accomplish two things:
Find — and/or nurture — specialty arabica, and
Change the way the world thinks about Vietnamese coffee
That’s actually how this blog started, and in fact how my career trajectory took me away from Pacific Northwest specialty culture and into something altogether very different — including speaking on the Re:co stage about changing the world’s opinion of Vietnamese coffee, and Vietnam generally. (PS, the video lecture requires a login, but it’s free)
It began with literally combing through coffee farms in Dalat, Lam Dong province, a peaceful (at the time - modern tourism demand has changed that) colonial “hill station” where generations of farmers had grown coffee.
As I waded through coffee plants, visited processing stations, and met farmers, it became clear to me: I had very good timing. The Vietnamese specialty movement was about to take off.
Some people attribute that movement to me, but this is wrong. All I did was support it. If a movement like specialty coffee is to begin and take root in a place like Vietnam, it wasn’t going to be an outsider like me who made it happen.
Sure, because of my ethnic heritage, it is a lot more palatable for this particular “western expert” to bring influence and visibility to the industry here. But I knew the industry didn’t really need me; rather, I believed it needed exposure to external markets.
I was wrong.
To my surprise, just as quickly as the quality of coffee grown in Vietnam jumped higher, so did the domestic demand for that very coffee. This internal consumption drove prices up, which created a virtuous cycle that brought Vietnamese specialty into the mainstream.
And, it turned out, I was needed for a few very specific things. Because of my early influence on and connection with the true progenitors of the Vietnamese specialty coffee movement, I got to be the one who transferred the open-hearted, transparent, collaborative culture of the specialty coffee industry from the west. It hasn’t always been culturally appropriate; for example, because of competitive realities in an emerging economy, I’ve witnessed a more winner-takes-all approach by some less scrupulous actors. But I can’t begrudge them this; certainly as 2nd wave coffee gave way to 3rd in the United States at the turn of the millennium, there was friction and discomfort.
But what I’ve seen emerge as the consumer base in Vietnam has grown and become sophisticated is a willingness on the part of producers, roasters, and cafes to acknowledge that the industry — and the movement that supports it — will be better served if we see ourselves as being in it together, which you have to admit is a very Communist — and Confucian — notion.
Right on the heels of this expansion of specialty production and consumption in Vietnam is a small movement of overseas Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans & Europeans who recognized the potential of coffee from Vietnam. They started single-origin roasting companies and cafes in their hometowns.
Specialty arabica and fine robusta from Vietnam is suddenly in high demand outside Vietnam. Which is great! Except it’s also kind of not great.
Competition for coffee has gotten to such a point that specialty roasters and cafes like mine in Vietnam are actually struggling to find enough of it at this point for our own consumption. I recently had to bid higher than I normally would to convince a grower friend of mine to sell all of his coffee to me instead of exporting it to Europe (sorry, Europeans).
It begs the compelling and potentially controversial question:
Who is Vietnamese coffee for?
And, if we widen the circle we draw around consuming & producing nations: who is coffee for?
I’ll leave you hanging there for now, dear reader, because I’m not entirely sure of the answer. I know that the topic is tricky, but I think the question is worth asking. Somebody’s got to.