On Coffee Culture: A Talk with Tung

Evelyn Nguyen
Apr 25, 2020
6 min read

Updated: Apr 26, 2020

Bài viết đã được chuyển ngữ Tiếng Việt tại đây.

If someone asks me about Vietnamese coffee, I would recommend nobody else but Tung.

Today I will introduce a longtime friend of mine, Tung, who I have known for almost 13 years. Perhaps because of our shared aesthetics, we have been good friends and companions for such a long time. Whenever I go back home, Tung would drive me around Hanoi on his scooters to coffeeshops, events of friends, live music, but the last stop would always be some random coffeeshop I’ve never been to. The irony is, I don’t even drink coffee, and when I do, I rarely ever finish it. To coffee, I am the embodiment of "here for a good time, not for a long time." I am quite glad that people rarely ever notice it, but in all honesty, I very much enjoy the experience of drinking coffee, even more than just caffeine itself.

Recently, Tung visited me in New York City. Of course, most of his leisure times was spent at some god-knows-where coffeeshop. But I know for a fact, when he says a place is good, that place is good. I trust his entire opinion on coffee, even his bias, favoritism, quirks and discrimination. While staying at my place, he actually pulled an all-nighter to write a grant for a Vietnamese coffee project. And he freaking got it! Then I know that he is not just a coffee enthusiast, but also an expert on sustainable Vietnamese specialty coffee. He is a contributor for the Sprudge, a newspaper on global coffee culture and everything-coffee. Tung is also a familiar face in the Vietnamese coffee community.

Let’s meet my friend, Tung!

1. Hi Tung, can you share about your history with coffee? What got you interested in coffee at the beginning?

Hi Evelyn! So I got into coffee after a trip to Dalat in 2016, where I went to La Viet Coffee and had a very special cup. To be transparent, La Viet is a company specializing in selected coffee beans sourced from local farms, where the company has cooperated with their production and processing to deliver high-quality beans. The baristas at La Viet introduced me to methods other than traditional brewing, like Hario V60, Kalita, and Syphon, each with its own technique. It was like watching a performance.

The cups of coffee I had at La Viet were also very strange. They were bitter, but sweet, with lightly sour notes. If I had to compare, it resembled fruit tea rather than coffee. The feeling was quite pleasant and enjoyable, with no the bitterness in the palate.

Back to Hanoi, I was curious and started to learn about brewing and coffee specialties. Vietnamese coffee is often characterized as third-wave coffee. So I got the tools to try to make coffee at home and over time became interested in coffees from other countries, like Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, or El Salvador. Depending on their country and variety, the beans might have distinct flavors, some taste like citrus, stone fruit, or berries, and others like toasted nuts.

To me, drinking coffee is like playing with scents. The game itself has led me to my relationship with coffee.

2. So which coffee do you like best at the moment?

This question is difficult to answer because at different times I like different kinds of coffee. But if I have to choose, it would be the washed processed Ethiopian coffee, with notes of lemon, Earl Grey tea, jasmine and peach.

3. I have always wanted to ask you, what's the difference between Dark Roast, Medium Roast and Light Roast?

Dark, medium and light refer to different levels of roast. The experience of roasting coffee is like that of cooking a steak. Coffee in the roasting process will gradually become darker, accompanied by changes in flavor. Light roast will retain as many natural flavors, the flavors of fruits, flowers, nuts. If the roasting process extends to medium, those flavors will be replaced with chocolate and caramel, and then become smoky if it is dark roasted.

Many people ask me why coffee has the taste of fruit and flowers, like it must have been infused. The coffee beans we drink is actually the seeds of the coffee fruit. Coffee fruits look like cherries. It is a product of nature, so in the process of development, the flavor from coffee is completely natural.

People are often unaware of this taste difference because the majority of the coffee sold on the market are roasted at dark, so the natural flavors have been completely gone.

4. I know you like to drink acidic coffee, would you explain why some coffee has a sour taste, why some others very deep flavor?

This has quite some relevant points to the question above. I often drink arabica coffee, and a characteristic of arabica is its sour taste, making it distinct from robusta (Vietnamese coffee is robusta, which merits a rich flavor). Arabica is often sour and sweet, and robusta bitter.

The acidity in arabica coffee usually depends on the type of roast. Lightly roasted coffee will be sour, and the sour taste will denote hints of fruits. For light roast, its acidity is also a variable of varieties, altitude, elevation, and soil.

Some varieties will taste more sour than others, and coffee planted in higher elevation will be more sour than lower-grown coffees.

5. For someone who just started on coffee, what are some tools you would recommend to get first?

Actually, it would be very difficult to choose one, so for those who want to elevate their coffee experience by a notch, I would suggest getting a hand grinder, a Clever Dripper, and a small scale. The cost for all three things falls around $50.

You should drink freshly ground coffee because ground coffee will gradually lose its flavors and scents when it becomes oxidized, and the taste will be very boring. Clever Dripper is a simple tool that allows you to make drip coffee without a lot of techniques. You need a scale because you want accuracy and consistency to make a good cup of coffee every time. And of course, the coffee must be delicious! I will suggest some places where you can buy delicious coffee in Vietnam and the US at the end of the post.

6. If you had to move and couldn’t bring all of your belongings, between Chemex, French Press and Clever Dripper, what would you choose to bring to the new home?

I'm going to choose Clever Dripper (and of course with filter paper!)

7. Sustainable living has become an issue that many young consumers like us care about. How has the coffee culture adapted to this need in your view?

There are many ways in which existing coffee shops and roasted houses apply to minimize environmental impact. Typically, instead of using a paper cup, shops now would introduce incentives for customers to want to bring a reusable cup.

In addition, large coffee maker manufacturers such as Keurig now produce more reusable pods instead of disposable pods. And if you do not want to waste filter papers, there are also stainless steel coffee filter, which can be used many years without the need for a replacement.

8. Would you like to share some of your recent projects with Vietnamese coffee?

Recently, through funding from the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), I and my friends at Bosgaurus Coffee Roasters (HCMC) have implemented a project to develop high-quality specialty coffee in Dalat. I'm taking part in this proposal as the coordinating author.

Before and even now, Vietnamese coffee has still not been recognized and respected in terms of quality. Though it is the world's second largest exporter of coffee, the reality is that Vietnamese coffee is still mostly used as instant coffee.

Because of cultivars, processing technique and cultivation practice, only a handful of farmers in the country can actually produce coffee to make the standards of specialty coffee. Specialty coffee is superior to the commodity-grade in terms of sweetness and flavor complexity.

One of the few specialty coffee producers in Vietnam is Pham Manh Hung’s farm in Dalat, which has been a partner of Bosgaurus for over 3 years. In this project, Bosgaurus will continue to support him with technicality to improve coffee production. At the same time we will apply the techniques to some neighbouring farms. Mr. Canh Hung (Bosgaurus) and I share the same dream that Vietnam would soon be able to export Arabica specialties that would leave the world in awe.