redbone wrote:
The Vietnamese coffee drinks that I've tried are the 2 traditional styles one cold and one hot. Using a drip filter (called a phin) coarse ground coffee is slowly dripped on ice cubes with sweetened condensed milk added. The other is Café du Monde (canned coffee) is French style coffee with chicory, from New Orleans, Louisiana, typically served 1:1 with milk. They're typically very sweet. I've never tried the coffee straight but could only imagine they would be bitter and astringent if made with mostly Robusta and a dark roast.
Sounds like you most likely tried some Arabica or other varietals not typically found this part of the globe.

I guess you're talking about Vietnamese style coffee preparation of Cafe du Monde. I visited them on a trip to New Orleans a few years ago for their coffee and beignets. The beignets were wonderful, the coffee with chicory dark, smooth and bland. They now sell a French roast that is labeled 100% Arabica.

When visiting Mr. Espresso in Oakland Luigi di Ruocco showed me an open sack of Robusta beans that was a high quality version they sourced. He said it can taste quite good. In the Pacific Northwest I tried Dutch Brothers espresso once. It didn't taste rubbery or bad but it must have been high in Robusta. My heart wanted to jump out of my chest!

bluesman wrote:I took about 1600 pics while there, but it'll be several days before I can get to them for editing and posting. Unfortunately, I didn't take many of the coffees but I do have some great shots of the city and the cafes we visited. We were blown away by how friendly and interested in us the people are - and the number of serious espresso machines absolutely shocked me. Tiny, dilapidated shops had gorgeous Nuova Simonellis. We saw a few Faemas and LMs, along with several with logos that said Bravo (with which I'm entirely unfamiliar). Our hotel had a Faema superauto that made great espresso. They have a maintenance contract with their supplier, and the machine was both spotless and well adjusted.

We had a wonderful time there and recommend Vietnam as a great vacation place for the adventurous, as long as you use some caution and common sense. I did have to forcefully shove a pickpocket away from us while walking back from a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City late one night, and the level of hygiene and sanitation is not great in the back alley shops we'd visit without hesitation in many other countries. So we didn't eat with our usual reckless abandon, and we took every precaution against street theft (nothing in pants pockets, everything in zipped vest, no jewelry, only jeans and t-shirts, etc). But the local food and beer are excellent - we had amazing pho and banh mi, plus some weird fish (e.g. snakefish and "elephant ear fish") along with some of the absolute best coffee we've ever tasted. We just stuck to known places with a decent level of basic sanitation and reputations for safe sourcing. After being on the Saigon River for hours during a trip to the Mekong Delta, we suspect that any fish that survives in that water wouldn't die if hauled out of it anyway

Would love to see you photos of the city and cafes if you are willing to share. So much change happening so fast in that area of the world, and your little part of documenting it publicly will help preserve this amazing time in the transformation stages of coffee culture there.

I was in the Yunnan province of China, just north of Vietnam, a year ago (not on a coffee related trip) and stumbled across a coffee farm. The only camera I had that day was my phone which was so low on batteries I had it turned off so I have no photos to show. Coffee was co-cropped with bananas and corn. Looked like a catimor or high yielding arabica varietal. I never saw a farmer to talk to and my schedule didn't allow me the time to explore. What a beautiful place in the world, and while I have yet to visit Vietnam, I imagine there are more similarities then not. Like most coffee producing areas of the world, finding a good prepared coffee is !@%#ing impossible. Guangzhou in the Guangdong province had hundreds of small coffee shops and all that I visited were disappointing. One specialized in kopi-luwak elusively and was entirely crappy. That said, I think fondly to all the crap coffee I drank on that trip, because of the people. Back in Kunming I found a small shop, about the size of one-car garage, and ordered an espresso. The barista, who turned out to be the owner, took so much pride in pulling a 10-second shot, dusting it with some unknown white powder for presentation and serving it to me with joy. Through our very broken conversation she learned that I was a roaster in America, and she invited me to teach her how to become a better barista. With a one year old child asleep in my arms, I walked her through espresso basics, grinding, tamping, extraction time and ratios. I will not forget that experience. And that under-extracted harsh swamp water she served me? Turned out to be the best coffee experience I had on that trip.

While not my experience, I saw this video posted on facebook awhile back of a traveler documenting their experience in Ethiopia. While many comments in the video are harsh and condescending, I love the pride the barista takes in crafting a unique beverage. I said it before and will say it again, some of my fondest coffee memories have involved amazingly bad coffee.
https://www.facebook.com/mikhail.yanche ... 6093117938

VeniaCoffee wrote:I have yet to visit Vietnam, I imagine there are more similarities then not. Like most coffee producing areas of the world, finding a good prepared coffee is !@%#ing impossible. Guangzhou in the Guangdong province had hundreds of small coffee shops and all that I visited were disappointing.

You're probably right about the north of Vietnam, but the south is a totally different animal. Although we avoided the back alley dives we might have tried in many other parts of the world because of practical hygiene & safety issues, we did stop at many tiny cafes in district 1 of Ho Chi Minh City and had excellent espresso and drip coffee from Vietnamese beans at almost all. And the Highlands chain (at least the 5 or 6 we visited) was light years ahead of Star$, even if it wasn't Blue Bottle.

The baristas & shop staffs were very enthusiastic despite not being able to tell me what the beans were in English, and they were all thrilled at being told by Americans how good their coffees were. Fortunately, we encountered no mysterious white powder