E1 Espresso

La Viet Coffee was founded in 2015 by Tran Nhat Quang, a former professor who spent four years sourcing small lots of high quality Arabica from farms around Da Lat in Vietnam's central highlands before opening his first location. The operation is vertically integrated in a way few roasters are: La Viet grows, processes, roasts, and serves its own coffee under one roof, with a full dry mill capable of processing a tonne of green beans in an hour sitting behind the café. Quang's focus has been on proving that Vietnamese Arabica can stand alongside coffees from more established origins, at a time when the country's output is still overwhelmingly robusta. His team works directly with local farms on picking techniques and processing methods. La Viet now operates several locations across Vietnam and roasts across a range of profiles from light to dark, with washed, natural, and honey processed lots all in rotation. It remains one of the few specialty roasters working at the intersection of farming, processing, and retail in a country that produces more coffee than almost anywhere else on earth but is only beginning to drink it well.