Vietnam Lam Dong-Dung K’No – Archived

Taste: A full, coating mouthfeel with great supporting acidity and a brown sugar flavor.  We’ve been waiting for a high quality Arabica from Vietnam, and this is it!

Roast: This bean was new to us, so we roasted at all levels Medium (City Roast), Medium/Dark (Full City), and Dark (French Roast).  The lighter roast produced a tart pop that dissolved into a mellow finish.  The dark tasted very “roasty”, much like a Central American bean, but with more sweetness.  But our favorite roast was Full City. Starting with a lower charge temp and dragging out the development phase with a slight increase to fan speed brought out this bean’s natural brown sugar sweetness.

About: Vietnam is the second largest producer of coffee in the world after Brazil, though the quality of the beans (generally strip-picked robustas) has limited their marketability.

Although arabica coffee trees (bourbon) were introduced near Hanoi in 1887, production in Vietnam has dwindled until recently, though the volume is still substantial: 1,000,000 bags/ year, more than countries like Kenya, El Salvador, Rwanda, Panama, and Papua New Guinea. These coffees are mostly blended with robusta coffee and destined to local cafes and neighboring China.
In recent years producers have started to focus more on quality production for the specialty market and we are starting to see some very impressive coffees coming out of this country.

Dung K’no (pronounced “Duhng Ka-nah”) is a community of around 300 people in the Lam Dong province. Coffee here is grown around 1500m altitude on small family farms that are less than 5 acres in size on average. Cherries are collected from the community and then brought to a nearby mill equipped with low water usage pulping equipment from Colombia. After the fruit is removed the coffee is dried in the sun on patios for several days. The resulting coffee has a profile reminiscent of great Colombian coffees. A full, coating mouthfeel with great supporting acidity and a brown sugar flavor.

All Offerings