Vietnamese coffee culture
May 2023
My favorite couch outside the living room
December 22, 2022, was a sad day for me. Labonté, my favorite coffee shop around the corner gave up, and I only found out when I was standing in front of closed doors. How sad, because not only did this place have the best cappuccino in my neighborhood (in my very personal point of view), but it was also a relaxing place, where I loved to sit on the little wooden stools outside on the street and let daily life pass by me. There was no better place to watch the garbage women at work, the many dogs running around, the young Vietnamese meeting, chatting, and taking endless photos of the drinks and food on the table and of course selfies. The obligatory lucky cat in the window, right next to the coffee machine, has always given me a friendly wave, too. Thank you, guys, for your coffee shop I enjoyed it so much!
I have to find myself a new favorite place. Hanoi has a vibrant coffee scene. From cozy coffee shops in Art Nouveau urban villas with comfy sofas and chairs almost like a private living room, to those with Nordic-style wooden furniture and a subtle touch of bright colors, to small, open one-room places with just a few small camping-style "lazy" chairs to the big Vietnamese coffee shop chains, and also the big American one with not so many branches though - Hanoi has it all. As diverse as the coffee shops themselves is the range of hot and cold coffee specialties on the menu.
With egg, coconut, yoghur, salted cream - whatever you want
There is the classical Vietnamese drip cà phê, hot or cold, with or without condensed milk. And there are coffee specialties: Cà phê trứng, egg coffee, is recommended as a signature drink in every travel guide and on relevant websites. It reminds me a bit of Italian Zabaglione, a foamy, custard like mixture of egg yolks and sugar on top of black coffee.
Also a kind of dessert is cà phê dừa, coconut coffee. It combines coconut cream and condensed milk blended with crushed ice and poured with black coffee - the perfect drink for a hot summer afternoon. And I still have one more: Cà phê sữa chua, yoghurt coffee, which is simply a mixture of lightly sweetened natural yogurt, served in a glass, poured with black Vietnamese coffee, sometimes with crushed ice, sometimes without. Back home, I would have never thought that joghurt and coffee is a good combination, but it is. A couple of weeks ago I discovered another coffee speciality, cà phê bạc xỉu. It is black coffee, served in a longdrink glass with a small layer of condensed milk, a large amount of milk, Vietnamese black coffee, coffee foam and lots of ice. Important thing for most of the coffee specialties is the straw (not the plastic ones please). Especially for the cà phê bạc xỉu a straw is the perfect companion as it allows you to control the sweetness, depending on how deep you dip it into the glass.
Condensed milk is popular in Vietnam since the days of French colonialism in the 80s of the 19th century. When fresh milk was rather expensive or often unavailable, sweetened condensed milk with coffee. It was the French chef Nicolas Appert who invented the method of preserving food by enclosing it in hermetically sealed containers. He produced condensed or canned milk for the first time in 1827.
Arabica & Robusta
Coffee was introduced to Vietnam in the middle of the 19th century by a French priest who brought a coffee plant to the northern region. The Arabica coffee plant thrived in the warm and humid climate and soon became an important crop for the French colonial government. Robusta coffee plants came later. Today Vietnam is the second biggest coffee exporter in the world according to the International Coffee Organization (2022). It produces primarily Robusta coffee.
A short reminder
Robusta and Arabica differ in taste, growing conditions, and price. Also, Robusta beans contain twice the level of caffeine than Arabica beans. And when it comes to taste, Robusta has a stronger and more bitter taste (robust?) whereas Arabica tends to have a smoother, sweeter taste, with flavor notes of chocolate and sugar. Vietnamese Robusta beans are typically used to make cheaper, mass-market commercial products, including instant coffee and supermarket blends.
Coffee farming
It’s easy to imagine that being the second largest coffee producer and exporter in the world has not come without cost. Coffee has made a huge contribution to production outputs, exports, and job creation. However, the use of fertilizers, pesticides and water has generated a series of environmental challenges, including deforestation and ecosystem degradation. In addition, climate change with higher temperatures, erratic rainfalls and longer dry periods impacts coffee production and quality.
From what I read on the internet, many coffee farmers in the Central Highlands (Vietnam's largest coffee-growing area) started to switch from traditional to sustainable production models a decade ago. Eco-friendly models include the mixed cultivation of coffee plants with fruit crops, the use of new techniques for pest control, as well as soil and fertilizer management and water conservation techniques. These practices serve not only environmental sustainability, but also economic and social growth and improved gender equality. Apparently, more and more women are becoming coffee entrepreneurs, either by taking over the family farms or starting small businesses. According to studies, these women farmers are innovative and forward-thinking. Two important skills for sustainable development anyway, and especially since the European Union has passed a law banning imports of commodities such as cocoa, palm oil, timber, soy, rubber, and coffee that are linked to deforestation from December 2024, and requiring proof that imports are free from deforestation.
If you want to dive deeper and learn more about coffee in Vietnam, I recommend the website helenacoffee.vn.
Okay, so much for coffee. You know what I'm going to do now, right? It's Saturday and I'm going for coffee. At La Pausa, formerly known as Labonté. It's renovated, has an extra floor on the roof, but the coffee machine and the coffee beans are just as good. There's nothing better than sitting on the roof terrace with a cup of coffee, watching people next to me and the life on the street.