In 2023, our Origin Roaster Collab: Brazil saw us teaming up with Minas Gerais’ Tocaya Torradores to showcase Brazilian coffees from domestic and international vantages. Now, we bring you Origin Roaster Collab: Vietnam. Square Mile has teamed up with Ho Chi Minh City’s Building Coffee . We each roasted the same green lot from up-and-coming Vietnamese washing station Lộc Rừng, and created this pack for you to try both a local and global perspective on the state of coffee in Vietnam today.
The general thesis of the Origin Roaster Collab project is that roasters and baristas within producing countries have a completely different vocabulary and set of limitations for sourcing and profiling. A globalised language of specialty coffee has favoured pioneers in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, resulting in surprisingly similar offerings and ways of thinking industry-wide. Roasteries in origin countries often rely on different sales networks, and may be limited to only domestic coffees, inducing them to create and expand their vocabulary with coffees that importing-country roasters may cast aside because they lack experience with a cultivar or a style. The best baristas and roasteries in the coffee belt are also creating exciting new design language and customer experience outside of the eurocentric lens, all while welcoming a huge group of coffee drinkers to specialty for the very first time.
This partnership has been years in the making. Building’s Will Frith moved back and forth between the US and Southeast Asian coffee scenes throughout his career, becoming somewhat of an ambassador for Vietnamese specialty coffee in the process. Frith connected with Square Mile green buyer Jamie Isetts while working for Modbar in the US before returning to Vietnam to establish roastery-consultancy Building Coffee, along with a café, Bel. Jamie and Will both relish the opportunity to interrogate expectations about where – and who – produces specialty coffee. An Origin Roaster Collab was only a matter of time!
Like Brazil, Vietnam is one of the world’s powerhouses for producing coffee at scale, but can be somewhat pigeonholed abroad as a source for identity-less “blenders” that don’t reward craft, quality, or a pursuit for equity. How odd for a country with a massive and mature coffee culture that rivals countries like the UK in terms of demand and variety. Much has been written about this gap in perception (including by Frith himself). At Square Mile, we were excited to exchange ideas with seasoned pros of the Saigon coffee scene and expand our understanding of roasting Vietnamese coffee along the way.
Our first objective: which green coffee should we choose? Starting at the beginning of 2024, we batted around a few potential producers to showcase. Since Will had kindly (and patiently) been sharing samples for years from top Vietnamese producers like Zanya Coffee, Tamba Coffee, Culture Bean, Mr. Pham Manh Hung, Mr Toi Nguyen, we had a good initial selection. Eventually we chose this impressively well-processed anaerobic washed Catimor from D’ung Kno’s Lộc Rừng Washing Station, which translates to “Nature’s Gift” in English. Even before connecting with managers Kate (Nguyễn Mỹ Duyên) and Leo (Nguyen Thanh Long), we were impressed in our blind analysis of samples at the consistency and sophistication of their processing, clear in the cup and the physical appearance of the beans.
Building Coffee and Square Mile selected and purchased the coffee, splitting up the lot and air-freighting half to England. We shipped our test roasts to one another, developed the taste notes and label design together, and exchanged ideas throughout the process. We’re delighted to share the results and celebrate Vietnam’s thriving specialty coffee culture.
About the Producer: Lộc Rừng
This was Lộc Rừng’s first year exporting, and we’re excited to be one of the few outside of Vietnam to offer their coffee. We chatted with Kate and Leo to hear about the project in their words.
SQM: What’s your coffee story?
Kate: I’ve been in the coffee industry for about three years. Before Lộc Rừng, I worked in a CQI In-Country partner lab for two years, with a lot of focus on the Dung K’No village. I wanted to know more about the life of the farmers – my parents are coffee farmers, as are Leo’s. We studied with Zanya Coffee, a well-known specialty producer in Vietnam, to learn how to work with farmers and process coffee effectively. After the coffee season, we both went to Ho Chi Minh Cityto work at a roastery. We realized after seeing every aspect that we most liked being in nature and working on the farm side of the industry.
SQM: Tell us about the Dung K’No Village, and what it’s like to work with coffee there.
Kate: The farmers in this region are ethnic minorities. People here rely on coffee trees and subsistence crops from the forest, as Dung K’No is within the multi-layered shade canopy of Bidoup Nui Ba National Park. With cherry prices very low, coffee production wasn’t sustainable financially or ecologically. We wanted to change that.
The default for farmers is strip picking their cherries – selective picking is much more work and is not rewarded if the price is low. We have focused on chncing that habit. We started with five farmers for selective picking training and expanded. Then, because we’re only buying ripe cheries, we can pay a high price. This past year, we worked with a larger group for selective picking training.
In Dung K’No, everyone has a small coffee farm. In order to buy enough volume of coffee cherry, we have to work with community blends. People prefer to be represented on a family or village level, not an individual level. We honour this and focus on finding the right person in that group to endorse us and work with us. We also focus on specific village and family groups to grow the network in a strong, sustainable way.
SQM: Could you share how you processed this lot of cherries?
Kate: Around November, we begin to see all sorts of people delivering cherry to our processing area. We own our own washing station, though it’s a simple set up. We have just one depulping machine that can run either using electricity of by hand, because black outs are common. Eight people work at the station full time, and we also emply 15 selective pickers to dispatch to the farmers’ plot at their request.
For our ‘anaerobic washed’ process, we start with ripe cherry and pulp without water, to preserve as much mucilage as possible. We then dry ferment in sealed grain-pro bags with one layer of plastic for 96 hours. After this, we wash off the mucilage and dry for ten to fifteen days, stopping when moisture reaches 10-12% by volume. We rest the dried parchment for about two months to balance the moisture throughout the lot, which increases the shelf life and stability.
Actually, we did not intend to use this method from the start, but at the time of processing there wasn’t enough water to do our traditional fully washed (fermenting under water). We didn’t want to do a honey or a natural because of the high risk of something going wrong with these sensitive processes. This turned out to be a great solution.
SQM: What would you like people to know about you, as well as Vietnam’s coffee industry?
Kate: Our generation of coffee professionals in Vietnam cares about sustainable agriculture. In Leo’s parents’ town, they use a lot of chemical fertilizer and focus on producing quantity. The new generation wants to focus on ecological sustainability and quality, which we see as very related. Coffee is our vehicle to achieve this goal.
We also want to showcase Catimor and its virtues when processed with care, where we can really see its potential. In Vietnam right now a lot of people are also starting to do specialty and fine Robusta, and we want to encourage this even if we are working with Arabica.For Lộc Rừng specifically, we want to raise the profile of Dung K’No coffees. Coffee is grown here at altitudes of 1500 to 1850 meters, and working with a lot of coffee farms in Vietnam we know the value of this high elevation for quality. Starting this coming season, we can separate the highest altitude farms and are excited to see the results.
