Most coffee is shipped in raw bean form and roasted at the destination. So bad roasts are not the fault of Vietnamese coffee per se.
You're describing traditional Vietnamese coffee for ca phe sua or ca phe den, it's close to burnt coffee because the sourced coffee beans are shit so they have to roast close to charcoal that's why we have to add a lot of sugar or condensed milk.
If you want to have coffees that taste close to specialty coffee then there are some local shops that colab or have their own farms that grow quality beans, but Idk if there's exporting roasted coffees.
I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee. Then the recommended way would be traveling to Vietnam, maybe?
Robusta coffees are much more popular across Asia, and there is a preference to mix coffee with milk.
In Europe and the US, there is a preference to drink Arabica coffee neat.
Starbucks had to pivot away from coffee to tea in India for that reason, and Starbucks in Vietnam failed due to their Arabica heavy bias [0] (also, Coffee shops in VN tend to also serve an equally robust Tea menu, which Starbucks fails at)
There are some solid coffee purist shops in D3, but the average consumer prefers Highland, Phuc Long, or Trung Nguyen Legend style shops and mixed coffees.
That said, the same problem mentioned in the blog above are slowly manifesting in VN as well. My in-laws are/were coffee farmers in Gia Lai, but they and their peers have pivoted to nuts like Macadamias instead because margins are better and Coffee is too commoditized
> I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee
Yep.
VN has a good FMCG market now, but they don't really target the US for exports.
And, it is mind bending for some folks to hear that I abhor the taste of arabica coffee. It is so so bad.
Bad coffee beans if not roasted to charcoal state taste even worse. Argument that that most of available coffee in VN is made from pretty bad beans, so roasters have no other way to roast it to that level.
That's it.
As others have said, Vietnamese coffee was traditionally cheaper robusta beans, tended to be lower-quality, and was dark-roasted as a result. More recently, as Vietnam has gotten wealthier, there has been a craft coffee scene developing. I had great coffee in growing regions like Da Lat and Khe Sanh, and in specialty coffee shops in Hanoi like Dream Beans.
But a dark roast is easier to produce, and easier to produce consistently. If you take high quality beans, and low quality beans, and roast them both to a dark level (let's say "French" or "Italian" roast), they're going to taste approximately the same. Therefore if you're producing coffee at a larger scale and want to save money, you can use cheaper beans and roast them dark to mask the imperfections that come with the cheaper beans.
There are some truly incredible coffees out there and a well-executed light or light-medium roast will bring out those flavors beautifully, but the quality starts at the coffee farm. You can't light roast a low quality coffee bean and expect those same excellent flavors.
I'm one of the lucky people where any coffee is coffee for me. McDonald's, Starbucks, instant coffee, specialty coffee, cat pooped coffee? Yup, it tastes like coffee, I'm good to go.
Also: What do you say about Italians drinking a cappuccino or macchiato (expresso shot with a splash of steamed milk)? From what I have seen while traveling in Italy, most Italians drink coffee at small coffee shops. Or French people drinking cafe latte?
However, roasting coffee dark does homogenize the flavor of the coffee, and you do lose more and more of what that coffee tastes like. Coffees have a ton of different flavor compounds, and no two coffees are the same. There are quality issues and processing issues though that don't help to highlight this too, so it's hard to find coffee - even from people who know how to roast - that can shine in this way.
I think everyone should try a good coffee that has some punchy flavors - I'm not saying everyone should like it. It's a fun thing and should be experienced if you're interested.
But to me, Starbucks still tastes terrible (burned), and Dunkin Donuts is nasty.
In recent years I've ordered my roasted coffee from coffeebeanery.com, and I've been pretty happy. I'm pretty sure all of the varieties I get are Arabica.
Either way, I'll take this over any other SEA or Asian country where it's a hassle to find coffee outside metro hotspots. Cafes and Coffee here is available everywhere and usually within a 30 seconds walk.
Side note:
I rarely drank coffee (or tea, although I do drink tea again, somewhat, nowadays).
I used to drink Indian-style milk tea almost daily, earlier, in school, college, and later.
So once, some years ago, when I walked into a Cafe Coffee Day [1] shop (an Indian coffee shop chain, possibly modeled on Starbucks), and after looking at the menu, ordered a macchiato. it was a pleasant surprise to find that it tasted very good. :)
(I had nothing against coffee, it was a common drink at home, growing up, the filter coffee [2] kind, but also Nescafe and Bru, just that I did not prefer it much, later.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Coffee_Day
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee
Filter coffee has kind of cult status in some states of South India.
Applies to vegetables and other vegetarian foods, too :)
Ever tried eating raw wheat, rice, pulses or vegetables? Only some vegetables are okay in salads.
also french coffee is horrible mostly because it is controlled by only one group in a mafia like fashion where they rent you the coffee machine but you have to buy their beans. italians can make good coffee with old espresso machines and average beans which says more about their skills than anything else.
If you are in the last box, you cannot get to the first one, but you can still move one step up by burning it. Plus you can add a lot of milk and cream and then it is almost the same anyway.
Overcooking and adding a lot of spices makes everything (more or less) edible. With less cooking and less spices, you can better taste the original ingredients.
I'm sure you will agree that raw beef and a steak taste differently?
Meanwhile, people that don't mind "burnt coffee" are the people that preferred coffee-based drinks from coffee shops. If I get a salted caramel mocha Frappuccino with two pumps of hazelnut - burnt beans are probably the only kind of beans I will be able to taste in that drink.
good one, bro.
now, walk the plank.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_plank
I'm sending you to Davy Jones' locker.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones%27s_locker
:)
jk
Arabica produces such a varied spectrum of cups, it’s really quite head scratching to hear you write off the entire species, yet still hear you drink robusta.
For specifics, its been a while since I tried it. I can seek out some to try again, if you want. I don't think it is as extreme as the "tastes like soap" reaction that many have on cilantro, but I'm growing to think it has to be similar.
I am not a expert on the science of cooking, these are just my casual, slightly scientific observations as a layman :)
