Eco Ca Phe Vietnam · Best Here is Pure Coffee Beans with Nothing Added |Tony Johor Kaki Travels for Food · Heritage · Culture

Vietnam is perhaps best known for pho, banh mi and ca phe or coffee. That, of course, is a gross simplification - Vietnam has a lot, a lot more than that (more next time).

Vietnam has a very strong coffee culture.

Vietnamese enjoy sitting at sidewalks with friends over coffee at all hours of the day and night.

Ca phe is everywhere in Vietnam - from hotels, exclusive restaurants, the ubiquitous cafes, to street side mobile coffee stands like this by Eco.

At Eco, you can get an iced espresso for Dong 12K (SGD 65 cents).

It feels really good to drink freshly brewed coffee with friends on a small table and kindergarten chairs at a typically busy, dusty, noisy, hot Saigon street.

The coffee beans are grounded on order, so it is always fresh. It's quite amazing considering that this was a mobile street side coffee stand 😮

A fresh cup of espresso - affordable, delicious, aromatic, everywhere. Vietnam is really a coffee country, coffee lovers' paradise.

Eco coffee is robust, yet doesn't have the bitterness and add-on "chemical" fragrance often found in Vietnamese coffee.

Eco has three street side coffee stands now and aims to increase their presence many folds. This stand is in District 6 of Ho Chi Minh City in the heart of its Chinatown.

Meng, founder and owner of Eco Coffee invited me to visit his roastery.

He has Arabica, Robusta and Peaberry beans from Vietnam's central highlands.

Meng with his master roaster.

The green machine in the foreground sorts the beans by size.

Eco roast their own beans, so supply and quality are well controlled and consistent.

Eco still roast their beans manually with lots of human input, instead of just leaving everything to computer software (the "industry standard" since a decade ago).

Instead of just pressing an icon on an iPad and let the software take over, Eco opted for good ol' Mark 1 eyeballs and olfactory system (nose lah).

Instead of just pressing an icon and go lepak (relax), at Eco, they stand by the hot roaster and patiently watch the beans turn brown 🤎

The beans were done, bronzy brown.

At Eco, they don't add sugar, margarine, corn, barley, or fragrant chemicals to their coffee beans. Only pure, Arabica, Robusta, or Peaberry and nothing else but heat from the roaster.