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This coffee opens with bright red fruit notes of red grape, cherry, and strawberry. Banana becomes prominent during the middle portion of the cup, along with darker, more jammy berry notes. The cup finishes with notes of marshmallow and cacao nibs.

We’re happy to be able to feature this coffee for a second harvest as it is both a delicious coffee and an indicator that Vietnamese specialty coffee production is at least stable and likely growing. This coffee is the product of the same 500 households that compose the Dung K’NO Commune that produced a coffee by the same name which we featured in July of 2024.

The story of how Vietnam became the world’s second largest coffee producer is an interesting one that began, like so many others, with the introduction of Arabica coffee varieties by christian missionaries. From the introduction in the 1850’s until the 1880’s coffee was grown by smallholder farmers. Things began to change when the French introduced a plantation style of coffee production, which was further expanded when the French created a coffee production zone in the central highlands, just north of where this Lam Dong coffee was grown. By 1940 Vietnam was exporting around 2,000 tons of coffee annually. Coffee production was severely disrupted during the Vietnam war, culminating in the depopulation of Buôn Ma Thuột, the economic center of coffee production in Vietnam, in 1975. Robusta coffee production began in 1975 and is, as a whole, much better suited to the climate of the central highlands than Arabica. However the confluence of colonial implications, war, and collectivization of farms that followed the end of the war all worked to severely limit the growth of coffee production.

On the other side of the globe in 1975, Brazil experienced a frost that severely impacted the following year’s harvest causing a near quadrupling of coffee prices. East Germany, already struggling with the impacts of the 1973 oil shock, spent nearly 500% more on coffee imports than they had projected, which caused them to pull their most popular and affordable coffee from the market, replacing it with a 50/50 mix of coffee and chicory, pea flour, and roasted grain. The mix was universally despised for both its taste and its propensity to ruin coffee machines with the mix of carbohydrates and proteins from the additives. Between 20% and 25% of coffee consumed in East Germany at this time was coffee sent by friends and family in the more affluent West Germany, leading both to resentment at the East German government and a sense of solidarity between the divided nation.

In response to the crisis, the East German government partnered with their close ally Vietnam to increase Vietnamese coffee production by providing training, trucks, machinery, and irrigation systems necessary for coffee production. The East German government also built a hydroelectric plant, hospitals, houses, shops- nearly everything needed to support the population of workers needed for large scale coffee production. In exchange, they were to receive 50% of Vietnam’s coffee harvest for 20 years. However, the coffee plants did not begin producing usable coffee at scale until they reached maturity in 1990, after the dissolution of East Germany, thus allowing Vietnam to reap all of the benefits of the program.

A 1:14 brew ratio with a medium grind and 195-205°F yields delicious and well balanced cups.