La Việt Coffee

Trần Nhật Quang came to coffee sideways: a former tourism lecturer at Đà Lạt University and a university in Ho Chi Minh City, he got pulled into an organic coffee project in Lâm Đồng in 2010, at age 30, and used it to pivot into building La Việt Coffee, which opened its first 'factory café' in Đà Lạt in 2013. His stated motivation was as much about farmers as about flavor: rather than let growers keep chasing high yields sold at low average prices, he built a business that controls quality at every stage, from cultivation on the Cầu Đất highlands through same-day processing, roasting and brewing, paying more for cherries picked at peak ripeness instead of whatever volume a farm could produce. The company's philosophy, stated on its own site, pointedly rejects the 'specialty coffee' label as marketing jargon — Quang's line is that 'there are only special people who make coffee with all their hearts.' A decade on, La Việt roasts and sells phin, filter and gift-boxed coffee from its Hai Bà Trưng roasting café, and exports reach demanding markets including Japan and the United States, even as the company says its best product and technology are still reserved for the domestic Vietnamese market it was built to serve.