447: Vietnamese Coffee Is Poppin’ Off with Sahra Nguyen

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I didn't understand how Robusta got such a bad rep. Because the frameworks in this dichotomy of superior-inferior between these two coffee species, I did not see replicated in any other agricultural product. We're never like, ooh, you drink white wine? That's so gross. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbart.

0:59Sarah Nguyen is the founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply, a progressive coffee company that is bringing Vietnamese coffee into focus in the coolest way. On this episode, we talk with Sarah about why she decided to focus on Robusta, a species of coffee that has grown widely in Southeast Asia, but lesser known in the United States. This is all rapidly changing thanks to Sarah, and we get into why her work in Nguyen is bringing this delicious coffee to the mainstream.

1:35Sarah Nguyen, welcome to This is Taste. How are you? I'm great, Matt. Thank you for having me. It's really cool to meet you finally. I've bought your beans and your coffees over the years and I think, you know, coffee is a micro trend here and I think we have some listeners who are tuning in just for coffee. interviews and you know what of course struck me first was that you are championing both Vietnamese coffee but Robusta coffee or Robusta coffee I think we're calling it Robusta we decided off Mike yeah Robusta I'd like to get a sense to start Robusta as a as a coffee what is it and how does it represent a coffee that is wonderful and beautiful but less represented than Arabica Yes.

2:20We're going to need more than 30 minutes here, Matt. I know. I know. Okay. So Robusta is a coffee species. So in the coffee world, there's Robusta, there's Arabica. Think like red grapes, white grapes, right? And Robusta makes up about 40 % of the total coffee production in the world. So it's by no means a small bean. It's just like you said, less represented, less known. Key differences between Robusta and Arabica are caffeine content. Robusta has nearly double the caffeine content of Arabica, so more function, more energy, flavor profile. Robusta coffee beans have up to 60 % less fats and sugars than Arabica, which really means a more bold, dark, chocolatey, nutty profile, whereas Arabica can really skew more fruit forward and citrus forward.

3:03Love that explanation. And I think the 40 % of world production is striking, but it gets about 0.4 % of the press. And we talk about Arabica coffees and we love Arabica's single origins and really all the specialty coffee, so to yourself, tends to be Arabica. But if you drink Robusta or Robusta, I'm going to fluctuate, I feel like you're going to open up a new world of coffee. I personally really like the flavor profile. It's different. And, you know, of course, roasting means a lot. You're a roaster. We're going to get into your journey to become a roaster. But really, when you're thinking about marketing Robusta, what are your challenges right now?

3:46Yeah. You know, when we first started, like back in 2018, it was really challenged to market Robusta because we were entering this social context where Robusta was basically deemed inferior to Arabica. And all over the Internet, if you Google Robusta Arabica, you would just see Robusta was deeply maligned. and there was such a stigma against Robusta. I was honestly so confused walking into it. I didn't understand how Robusta got such a bad rep because the frameworks and this dichotomy of superior inferior between these two coffee species, I did not see replicated in any other agricultural product.

4:24We're never like, ooh, you drink white wine? That's so gross, right? Like it doesn't exist. So this was really like the beginning of me trying to unpack this and then address it. So when we first started, because we were entering this stigma, we were essentially challenging the status quo, which was really difficult because a lot of people were like, that's gross. Why are you selling Robusta? Like Robusta is like inferior. Yeah. A lot of people, it was like the hospital coffees, the gas station coffees. That's like the line of Robusta, like if you even went five years ago before New England Coffee Supply launched and became what you are.

5:01Yes. And I want to acknowledge that there is some truth to that, right? Like, yes, there is some historical systemic truth to the way Robusta has been channeled into the coffee experience. So Robusta for so long, because it's a robustly growing being, a lot of industries focus on volume. And so they focus on volume versus quality, which means which is why Robusta has been pushed into a lot of these channels, such as instant coffee or maybe bodega coffee. Right. Like there is truth there. However, we were coming in and saying, like, OK, that's the truth. And where do we go from here? How do we make it better?

5:34Yeah. Well, we'll get to your journey and we'll get some of the products you're creating. You launched an RTD line, which I'm sipping on right now. And I think it's so excellent. And I love, of course, Vietnam as a coffee region. So essential to specialty coffee, to all coffee. And you're really shining a light. let's zoom out a bit though and talk about coffee and just like the the discourse around coffee because i still think today i've been thinking about this recently i'm working on a piece i'm thinking about how still today if you talk about coffee and you say anything more than i like it with milk there is a tendency for people to assume you're a quote coffee snob and there's like some kind of like there's like an unsettling there's a feeling that that you know you don't want to talk about coffee because you want to be considered a snob or a jerk.

6:21But like, how do you observe this first? And second, how do you get people to actually talk about coffee and not feel weird about it? I definitely observed this coffee snobbery vibe when we were building and actually thought it was the opposite of what you said, where I felt like it was within folks who, if they wanted their coffee with milk and sugar, if they didn't know how to use a scale, then they didn't feel comfortable talking about coffee because they would feel judged for not knowing more about coffee. And so I definitely feel like there was so much elitism that was happening in this like, quote unquote, third wave.

6:56When I try to analyze it, I feel like it was because there was such a focus on extraction science and mastery, which I think is so beautiful for so many reasons. However, that somehow translated into coffee snobbery. And it became like, if you're not drinking coffee like this, that you're just not a good coffee drinker. And I think that idea is totally preposterous and needs to stop. I'm like, fuck the flavor wheel. Yeah. I'm going to keep saying that because I think when you prescribe to your end user that you should be tasting bergamot and tar and all these lactic acids in coffee, it makes people really shut down.

7:26And you want coffee to be for everyone. But you also want good coffee and you want people to pay. But you don't want people to feel alienated and telling people they need to taste key lime pie or whatever in coffee makes me angry. So I feel like, yes, thank you. Oh, my gosh. I still feel your anger as well. Do you. Yeah, do you. Exactly. Do you in many ways. And I think Nguyen Coffee Supply represents, of course, you as a founder, you're not like if you go to a coffee expo, especially like a female founder. Very few female founders in coffee. Let's take us back a little bit. This isn't an origin story show, but I'd like to get a sense about when you started thinking about coffee as a real business, where were you?

8:07You know, you went to college in Los Angeles and you have a background in media and you really you have another career outside of coffee. But clearly coffee struck a nerve. What inspired you to start the company? Yeah. You know, I feel like I was an outlier in so many different ways when I first started. So prior to starting the Wind Coffee Supply, I had zero experience in coffee, zero experience in importing and roasting. I didn't even know how to use a scale. Right. I was a full-time filmmaker and journalist freelancing in New York City. So a complete opposite experience. And it really started because as a freelancer in New York, I was spending a lot of time in coffee shops.

8:42And I started noticing these macro trends of like matcha popping off and chai popping off. And I was like, oh, these are Asian beverages entering U.S. mainstream culture through cafes. And then I started seeing Vietnamese iced coffee popping off on these menus, except they weren't using Vietnamese coffee beans. Right. So this was like an early signal of like, OK, there's this interest in this Asian beverage, but there's actually a void in the market. I feel like I felt you because I think in observing coffee and you see these like wonderful cold coffee drinks on menus and, you know, GMB in L.A., wonderful, you know, kind of like pioneering the way cold coffee is served.

9:21But then you would see the occasional Vietnamese coffee. And yeah, there was like a disconnect between origin and the actual end. And to me, that felt like I fully agree with you. Like, I'm glad that you could like build this company. You're a roaster, too. And that's kind of like buried in the lead. You're a founder. You speak a lot of conferences and you're really cool. But like the idea, and I say, but because there's a whole nother world of roasting. That shit is fucking hard. And like you are doing it in a high level. How did you learn to roast? What the heck? So, well, when we first started, we started roasting at a shared roasting facility.

9:56and the only way they would let us rent the probat was if we took their roasting course, which makes sense. It's like hop on this 400 degree machine, but you have to take a lesson first. Of course, that makes sense. So I took a roasting course. It was like a four week roasting course just to be able to have access to this machine. And then from there, I just started roasting every week. And when we first started, I was on the probat, which is a manual machine. So I had to really develop all of my senses manually. And then over time, we were able to transition to like a production roaster, which had an automatic profile.

10:25But yeah, today I've developed all of our rose profiles that you can find on a website. So when you're working in the manual probot, which is amazing if you can see those, are you like using like all senses, right? You're hearing the crack. You're hearing like you're looking at the colors. How do you get a sense? Smelling it. Smelling it. I mean, it's so nuanced. And as we've said on the show with all the coffee folks, it's really the roaster's responsibility to represent origin. That's the responsibility. That's what folks maybe don't realize about coffee is you can do all the work in origin.

10:54We can talk about the coffee farms in Dilaud that you work with. But if you come back and you burn the coffee and you over roast or over mature it, not good. How did you feel about that responsibility? It was definitely a big responsibility. And knowing that I was entering the industry with the stigma against Robusta, against Vietnamese coffee, I definitely felt a lot of pressure to represent Vietnamese coffee in a new light. And in a lot of ways at this time, there was nobody that I found in New York roasting Vietnamese coffee, let alone a Robusta bean. The first time we had imported our very first palette of greens, literally the roastery folks were like, we've never had a Robusta bean in here.

11:32Yeah. And so it was definitely a lot of responsibility to find my own personal journey in roasting and find the style and the preference that I felt like could be an entryway for other people. So, for example, our very first release of 100 % Robusta was a medium roast because I knew that the palette in the U.S. was light roast in Arabicas. And I couldn't quite, I don't want to like shock the system by offering a Robusta and a dark roasted Robusta, even though that is the popular style in Vietnam, right? So I had to think a lot about like the social culture context in the U.S. and try to find like an access point.

12:07It's really threading the needle there because you want to represent origin and style and Vietnamese roasting techniques, but you also need to sell coffee. We're going to go back in the process and talk about origin and green coffee. So how do you at New Wing Coffee Supply and your team, how do you think about origin? And are you into a lot at your farms every, is it a winter season or spring? Like tell me a little bit more about what origin is like when you're actually harvesting the coffee cherry. Yeah, harvest season starts like late October, early November and usually wraps by end of January.

12:43And then the greens kind of sit for a month and then the first shipment can go out in March, right? So our primary source of coffee today is Indalat. We've been working with a main producer since 2016. But over the years, we have expanded our network to other producers in Sung La, in Bumutut, in Deknam. And I go back every year to really work with our producers, to listen to them, to learn from them, to kind of share what I'm seeing on the market on our side and hear the challenges they're experiencing. and over the last five years, the cost of our greens have gone up nearly 3X because of the work and the collaboration that we've done together to improve the quality of the beans.

13:26That's amazing. Let's sit on that for a second. You're deciding to pay this much because I think that's a responsibility. I had Jeff Watts on the show. He used to buy coffee at Intelligentsia and for you to create a sustainable system, you want to give equity back to the farmers. So when you say that the cost went up 3x, those are kind of at your choice, right? Yes. Because you're deciding that you want to pay more for this coffee and get it to a place that makes sense for the American market. Yes. Now, how do you, as a founder and as a business owner, deal with that kind of investment of 3x increase?

14:03Because the coffees aren't increasing 3x. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we haven't raised our prices. We actually just brought our prices down. You know, because our mission is to rewrite the narrative on Robusta. And you can't just talk the talk. Yeah. You have to do the work. If we understand that Robusta has been channeled into a conventional or like cheap coffee market. Commodity coffees. Commodity, yeah. Sold by weight, not by origin. Exactly. Because there's been a lack of investment to improve the crop. Definitely not to the same degree as we've seen with the Arab species, right? So in order to elevate the species of Robusta and to change people's minds, we have to change it through taste.

14:46In order to make the taste approachable, we have to treat it better. So over the years, we've asked our producers to do certain things. In the beginning, it's like our producer, they've never been offered the opportunity to improve their crops. So they're producing for the market. So, for example, one of the very, very early issues we had to work through were Quakers. And I was like, OK, there's about like five to maybe eight percent Quakers in here, which you probably don't think is that bad. But this is not acceptable in the U.S. market. We must solve this. Describe what this is for our audience who might not know.

15:18Quakers are pretty much like when they're roasted, they're a very, very light brown color bean, which usually signals an underdeveloped coffee cherry. Yeah. Right. And so this is coming down to the handpicking process. Right. So a lot of places, if they're selling it to just like, you know, traders or whatever there, they'll grab all the coffee cherries off the brands, whether they're green, yellow, orange or red. So the different levels of ripeness, which means different levels of sweetness. So we had to go and say you need to handpick 100 percent red ripe only. No yellows, no oranges, red only, which takes more time and more labor because the farmers, they go in for a day.

15:54They pick all the red. If they're done, they have to go back another day versus grabbing all at once. Let alone all the stones and gravel and all the other shit that gets caught at these washing stations. And really, it's amazing that you're investing in your farmers. Are you helping them with technology, too? Are you giving them money to build up their washing stations, all that? We haven't gotten there yet, but we have talked about that for sure. Because our farmer bought a second farm two years ago, and now we're talking about building up that facility there. Can I share one more story about the housing?

16:24So a really big piece that we started doing with our robustas is we transition from a natural processing method to a full wash method. And I remember the first time I asked my farmer, can we please do a full wash? Because all of our rabbits are full wash. I was like, can we please do a full wash with the robusta? And he was like, I'm just worried that if we do that, you won't be able to sell the robusta. And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, it's going to be too expensive. Oh. And I'm like, I understand where you're coming from. Let me worry about that because it costs more to do a full wash.

16:55But through these steps, right, now we have beautiful robustas. You could crack open a bag today. There are no Quakers in there. Full wash, 18 screen size, large and beautiful. Okay, this is cool. This is the work, though. No, this is the work. And thank you for doing it. I mean that. It's like this is not to get rich, at least now, but I'm joking. But like you are putting up a lot of your own, you know, your equity, your sweat equity to make sure that these farmers are paid. I've met coffee folks at coffee shows whose names are on the bottles who've never been to Origin, which is insane to me.

17:31But you're there every year. You're offering them money. I think that's important. And you know what else, Matt? If we can do this with our Robusta at our farm in Vietnam, this will create a ripple effect for Robusta growers worldwide. because now we're elevating the reputation of Robusta. And so now when I go to SCA, especially Coffee Association or Connecting World Coffee is Costa Rica, everyone's talking about Robusta, which is the work that we want to see. And now roasters are like, hey, importer, do you have a fine Robusta? Importers are going to order. You're like, hey, farmers, do you guys have a fine Robusta?

18:04Now farmers are like, we can make fine Robustas. It's interesting. I've definitely seen Robusta offered, you know, in all sorts of coffee companies, You know, not Vietnamese coffee company, but in, you know, we've talked about off mic. Blue Bottle Coffee. Like it was a year or two ago where Blue Bottle offered their very first Vietnamese blend, which is like so cool. And then I think it was either this year or last year they offered their first ever Robusta blend series, which is just a signal that, yes, more and more coffee companies are now embracing fine Robusta. It's really, really cool to see this category grow and you're definitely a pioneer in it.

18:39Let's talk about the end user. We're jumping around the path of the coffee. We were going from green. We talked about roasting. But the end user for buying your coffee in Whole Foods, and we'll talk about the channels. But let me ask you, I use personally Chemex. I'm like, you know, 16 to 1, 17 to 1, you know, doing my thing. But, like, I feel like robust needs to be treated slightly differently. And I think I've kind of messed up your coffee sometimes because I kind of don't know. And I've, like, played around with ratios. But how do you homebrew your coffees? Yeah. So I homebrew our Hanoi roast, which is a 100 % Robusta dark roast every morning through the V60.

19:15What I found with Robusta is that I actually like to use a lower temperature for water. So maybe with an Arabica, I might do 200 degrees. But with a Robusta, I'll do like between 195 to 198. Wow. I can't quite explain the science, but I just find that because Robusta has less fats and sugars, There's like slightly less, I guess you'd call it less nuanced than an Arabica. So it's easy to flatten the bean, right? I've also found that the grind size is really, really critical because there's already less sugar. It skews bold. So if it's like a hair too fine, like some Arabicas, like the grind size for Arabica, I'd go a little bit more coarse for Robusta just so that it doesn't risk being overbitter.

19:57So if we're talking about on like a 1 to 30 scale in terms of grind size. 1 to 30, I'm at like a 16. 16. Like 14 to 16, depending on the roast, yeah. And water temperature is really key, what you say. Like 195 is low for Arabica. You know, 200, 205 is kind of the sweet spot for coffee for the water temperatures. And this might sound small, but it's dramatic. And if I'm doing like a 1 to 2 grind and doing it 205, 207, that coffee might be flattened out exactly. and, you know, it might express bitterness. It might express impurity, but that's not the way it's intended. So my question is, how do we get people to understand that Robusta has a different style of brewing needed?

20:43Yeah, I'd say for any coffee that you bring home, whether it's a Robusta or a blend or a Arabica, is I say you just have to play with it. You have to have fun with it. Like you can't treat every coffee bean or blend the same, right? So like your grinder isn't always going to be the same setting, right? Your water temperature isn't always going to be the same setting. Like when you're brewing a new bean or a new bag of coffee, just taste it. If it tastes too sour, change it up. Maybe, you know, make the grind size more fine. If it tastes too bitter, it's probably over-extracted to make the grind size more coarse.

21:13Like I think just like being, having an open mind and just remembering that like not all coffees are the same and just to like experiment is the best way to enjoy your coffee. Well said. I fully agree. That's the best way. and you know you're buying a bag of coffee you can get like you know six or seven batches out of it so you mess up the first one just adjust it and that's the beauty about coffee yeah if you're doing it a couple times a day it's kind of fun to you know mess around the ratios okay let's get to the actual product line so you've got um all of these they're blends but they're essentially from the delat farm but you've got three other farms that you're working with and you've got this rtd that's ready to drink i'm sipping on the can how the heck did you get to rtd that that seems bold.

21:50Yeah. To use a very specific word. Pun intended. Yeah, exactly. A bold bean. Yeah, the RTDs, we were just talking off mic earlier. The RTDs are brutal. And I remember before getting into it, all my friends who were in RTDs were like, don't do it. And I was like, I know! I don't want to do it! But there was a very, very strategic reason why. Back in like 2021, early 2022, on our website, 90 % of all of our customer reviews were five out of five stars. It was a very, very high proportion of five out of five stars. And we were like, we need to understand what customers like about a product. So we exported all of our customer reviews and we did a keyword analysis and we looked for the number one trending word.

22:31Do you know what the number one trending word we found was? I mean, bold? No. Smooth? Flavor. Flavor. Flavor. Yeah. Yeah. And we were like, oh my gosh, they love the flavor. Then we were like, we must get people to the flavor experience quicker. How do you do that? Liquid to lips. Yeah, liquid to lips is great. And I'm like, your friends were right. RTD is brutal. And like we've had RTD founders on here for many different categories of NA and also alcoholic spirits and our drinks. And man, it is challenging flavor. So when you're launching your RTD, how are you pitching it? Because like there's a lot of cold coffee out there.

23:10The bodega downstairs or whatever, the grocery store is like they've got like literally 18 different cold coffees going on. How are you trying to break through? How are you doing that? Yeah, I mean, we have a clear point of difference. If you walk into a Whole Foods Sprouts Target where we're currently at today and you look at the RTD set, we are the only can on shelf right now that is made with 100 % robusta cold brew and Vietnamese coffee beans and has a flavor skew like condensed milk. So we have true differentiation, right? So when it comes to like the category managers, they're always looking for innovation and for things that grow the category.

23:46So we're not coming in with an oat milk latte, no shade, but that's not innovation in their eyes. It's not growing the set. So, you know, we've had the beans for like five years and we were online for five years and we try to like enter retail. It was a slow entrance to retail. We were like in one region with Whole Foods. We launched the RTDs and we launched nationwide with Whole Foods right away. out the gate. That's great. Yes. So it just shows that the category of RT itself is growing, but really within that set, we had true differentiation. Did you sell? Yes, we sold. Yeah, you sold. Tons.

24:21It's hitting. People are liking it. It's hitting, yes. I love to hear that. Back to the actual coffees, you mentioned those retailers. Are they selling your coffees as well and your RTDs? September will be the one-year mark where we've entered every region of Whole Foods. So we're still really early to the game. Right. But we're already seeing over the last like year that now our beans are gaining traction with retailers because the awareness for the category overall is growing. I love that. So remind us how we can buy your coffee in the whole bean format. What's the best way to buy it? Where are some of the channels?