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All the vietnamese coffee that I tried in europe (even in hype shops) tasted like american “french” roast aka burnt bad coffee. Could you recommend ways to try
by retinaros 2y ago
All the vietnamese coffee that I tried in europe (even in hype shops) tasted like american “french” roast aka burnt bad coffee. Could you recommend ways to try nice coffees from vietnam?
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoFind another roaster that doesn’t burn it? Most coffee is shipped in raw bean form and roasted at the destination. So bad roasts are not the fault of Vietnamese coffee per se.
- throw_pm23 2y agoThe problem is if it is bad, they have to burn it to mask the taste. Same with most meats too.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoI don’t follow - how do you mask a bad taste (bad coffee) with a bad taste (burned coffee)? I.e. if it’s going to taste bad then use a lighter roast, cheaper and faster anyway.
- kdmtctl 2y agoOne could pretend that beans are intentionally burned, "The Vietnamese Way", regardless of the source material quality. Lighter roast would differ from batch to batch with varying not-so-good taste, but charcoal is always a charcoal.
- 0x457 2y agoBurnt coffee taste like burnt coffee. Vietnamese drink coffee with 1/4 can of condensed milk in it. Bad coffee beans if not roasted to charcoal state taste even worse. Argument that that most of available coffee in VN is made from pretty bad beans, so roasters have no other way to roast it to that level. That's it.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoThey could just stop selling it if it’s that bad :)
- forgotoldacc 2y agoLower income countries make do with what they have. They can't just throw everything out and import higher quality stuff like some countries can.
- EasyMark 2y agoI agree. If they weren't making money, they'd go bust, so clearly someone likes the "burnt coffee". It's odd how some posters (not you!) Will act like an obvious opinion is to be taken as fact, and not acknowledge that some people like a certain taste. I mean, some people like super salty anchovies, but I abhor them, but I don't tell the anchovie lovers that they are incorrect.
- 0x457 2y agoI think it's because people that complain about "burnt coffee" (me) are people that take their coffee black and probably brew it at come. Meanwhile, people that don't mind "burnt coffee" are the people that preferred coffee-based drinks from coffee shops. If I get a salted caramel mocha Frappuccino with two pumps of hazelnut - burnt beans are probably the only kind of beans I will be able to taste in that drink.
- bschwindHN 2y agoDark roast isn't necessarily bad, quite a lot of people prefer the taste, especially if they're adding milk or other things to their drink. But a dark roast is easier to produce, and easier to produce consistently. If you take high quality beans, and low quality beans, and roast them both to a dark level (let's say "French" or "Italian" roast), they're going to taste approximately the same. Therefore if you're producing coffee at a larger scale and want to save money, you can use cheaper beans and roast them dark to mask the imperfections that come with the cheaper beans. There are some truly incredible coffees out there and a well-executed light or light-medium roast will bring out those flavors beautifully, but the quality starts at the coffee farm. You can't light roast a low quality coffee bean and expect those same excellent flavors.
- throw_pm23 2y agoThe range is somehow (unburnt good coffee) > (burnt good coffee == burnt bad coffee) > (unburnt bad coffee). If you are in the last box, you cannot get to the first one, but you can still move one step up by burning it. Plus you can add a lot of milk and cream and then it is almost the same anyway.
- searealist 2y agoThis is a common cliche in the hipster coffee community. The truth is darker roasts change the acid profile of coffee, and many people prefer that taste. To them, drinking a "good" coffee is like drinking a "bad" coffee with a lemon squeezed into it.
- retinaros 2y agonot really a cliche. that is why starbucks does it. they can cover up taste of poor beans especially when adding milk. most prefer a dark roast because corporations want to make profits and made our tastebuds lazy by force drinking it everyday. just like food with sweeteners or msg. it just kills the purpose of food as a craft. nowadays its even more the opposite there is an hipster revival of dark roast or msg hyping culture as marketing tool to sell it. but lets be homest those things are cache-misère
- searealist 2y agoThis comment is a bunch of contradictory hipster attitudes.
- throwaway2037 2y ago"poor beans": This is the first time that I heard that Starbucks has poor beans. Can you explain more? To be clear: I am not here to shill for Starbucks. Also: What do you say about Italians drinking a cappuccino or macchiato (expresso shot with a splash of steamed milk)? From what I have seen while traveling in Italy, most Italians drink coffee at small coffee shops. Or French people drinking cafe latte?
- fuzztester 2y agoHow does burning mask the taste of bad meat? (Not a meat eater, here.)
- throw_pm23 2y agoBurnt meat tastes like burnt meat, people are familiar with it and can eat it, even it is not the greatest thing, and burnt meat tastes like burnt meat regardless of how it was in the beginning, so you could imagine that it was actually good, it just happened to be burnt. Not burnt meat has a wider range, it can taste good or bad, it's like in "dead men tell no tales" :)
- fuzztester 2y ago>dead men tell no tales good one, bro. now, walk the plank. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_plank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_plank I'm sending you to Davy Jones' locker. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones%27s_locker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones%27s_locker :) jk
- a012 2y ago> All the vietnamese coffee ... “french” roast aka burnt bad coffee You're describing traditional Vietnamese coffee for ca phe sua or ca phe den, it's close to burnt coffee because the sourced coffee beans are shit so they have to roast close to charcoal that's why we have to add a lot of sugar or condensed milk. If you want to have coffees that taste close to specialty coffee then there are some local shops that colab or have their own farms that grow quality beans, but Idk if there's exporting roasted coffees. I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee. Then the recommended way would be traveling to Vietnam, maybe?
- alephnerd 2y agoTaste preferences are different too. Robusta coffees are much more popular across Asia, and there is a preference to mix coffee with milk. In Europe and the US, there is a preference to drink Arabica coffee neat. Starbucks had to pivot away from coffee to tea in India for that reason, and Starbucks in Vietnam failed due to their Arabica heavy bias [0] (also, Coffee shops in VN tend to also serve an equally robust Tea menu, which Starbucks fails at) There are some solid coffee purist shops in D3, but the average consumer prefers Highland, Phuc Long, or Trung Nguyen Legend style shops and mixed coffees. That said, the same problem mentioned in the blog above are slowly manifesting in VN as well. My in-laws are/were coffee farmers in Gia Lai, but they and their peers have pivoted to nuts like Macadamias instead because margins are better and Coffee is too commoditized > I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee Yep. VN has a good FMCG market now, but they don't really target the US for exports. [0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66167222 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66167222
- taeric 2y agoIt really has gotten to the point that different coffee should be treated as different teas. Nobody expect that the different teas should taste the same. For some reason, the expectation is largely that coffee should be coffee. And, it is mind bending for some folks to hear that I abhor the taste of arabica coffee. It is so so bad.
- bryananderson 2y ago“Go to Vietnam” is maybe not the most practical suggestion for grabbing a cup of coffee, but that’s where I found the best Vietnamese coffee. As others have said, Vietnamese coffee was traditionally cheaper robusta beans, tended to be lower-quality, and was dark-roasted as a result. More recently, as Vietnam has gotten wealthier, there has been a craft coffee scene developing. I had great coffee in growing regions like Da Lat and Khe Sanh, and in specialty coffee shops in Hanoi like Dream Beans.
- csomar 2y agoSounds like you got a real Vietnamese coffee. All kidding aside, my experience drinking coffee here (Vietnam) is that most of the coffee shops have bad coffee. I am not sure if it's the beans, the machines or the culture. There is, maybe, 1 in 7 coffeeshop that will do the coffee kinda okay. I don't think the locals care too much (basing on google reviews). Either way, I'll take this over any other SEA or Asian country where it's a hassle to find coffee outside metro hotspots. Cafes and Coffee here is available everywhere and usually within a 30 seconds walk.
- charlysl 2y agoThe moka is pretty good though (and much more expensive)