Vietnam Is More Than Robusta

Discovering Arabica, Yellow Bourbon, and a Different Side of Vietnamese Coffee

Before moving to Vietnam, my understanding of Vietnamese coffee was probably similar to that of many Americans. I knew Robusta stronger, bolder, higher in caffeine, and commonly served here with sweetened condensed milk. There’s a reason that combination works. Robusta has a punch to it, and when you add condensed milk and ice, you get something bold, sweet, and distinctly Vietnamese.

But when I started thinking about creating Dalat Collective, I wanted to approach Vietnamese coffee from a slightly different direction. I wanted to introduce people back home to another side of it.

Why I Started With Arabica

I had already started moderating how much sugar I consumed, and my palate leaned toward the coffees I was accustomed to drinking in the United States smoother cups I could drink black, pull as espresso, or experiment with using different brewing methods.

So when Dalat Collective started taking shape, Arabica made sense to me. Not because I thought Arabica was necessarily “better” than Robusta, but because of the customer I initially wanted to reach. My first market was primarily American, and Arabica provided a familiar bridge between what many American coffee drinkers already enjoyed and the coffee culture I was discovering here in Vietnam.

That became the direction for our first coffee. But the longer I’ve lived here, the more I’ve realized how much I was simplifying Vietnamese coffee.

Vietnam Is More Than One Coffee

You can’t tell Vietnam’s coffee story without Robusta. It is deeply connected to the country’s agriculture, economy, and everyday coffee culture. Sit on a little plastic stool, order a cà phê sữa đá, and watch the traffic go by, and you’re experiencing something just as meaningful to Vietnamese coffee culture as an expensive specialty pour-over.

But living in Đà Lạt introduced me to another side of the industry. The cooler climate and elevation of the surrounding highlands create conditions where Arabica can be grown, and once I started visiting farms and talking to people in the industry, simply saying “Arabica” stopped being enough.

I started hearing names like Catimor, Typica, Bourbon, and eventually Yellow Bourbon.

Before getting involved in coffee, I would have seen “100% Arabica” on a bag and assumed that told me almost everything I needed to know. Now I understand it’s really just the beginning. Variety, elevation, climate, soil, ripeness, processing, fermentation, drying, roasting, and brewing can all change what ultimately ends up in your cup.

It reminds me of wine. Saying something is wine doesn’t tell you whether you’re drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, or Chardonnay. Coffee isn’t that different.

Finding My Favorite: Yellow Bourbon

As I continued tasting coffees around Đà Lạt, one variety started standing out to me: Yellow Bourbon. It became my personal favorite, and eventually my search led me directly to a local farmer growing it.

Instead of simply buying coffee from a distributor or choosing something from a catalog, I was able to learn about his operation and see how he and his team work with the coffee, including hand-picking the cherries.

Standing with the people actually growing your coffee changes the conversation. It stops being only, “How much per kilogram?” You start asking how it’s grown, when it’s harvested, how the cherries are selected, how it’s processed, what the crop looks like and eventually, how can we work together?

That relationship is increasingly what I want Dalat Collective to represent.

From Farmer to Dalat Collective

I’m still a small company, and I’m still learning. I’m not going to pretend that I understand generations of Vietnamese coffee knowledge after living here for a relatively short period.

What I can do is build relationships with people who do.

I can listen, learn, taste, visit the farms, understand the process, and when I find something I genuinely believe is special, help create a connection:

Farmer → Dalat Collective → Customer.

That’s what I hope to do with this Yellow Bourbon. I intend to continue building our relationship with the farmer and, as Dalat Collective grows, share more of his coffee and his work with people outside Vietnam.

There’s something different about knowing where your coffee came from beyond simply seeing a country printed on the bag. I want to eventually be able to tell you about the people behind it.

Robusta or Arabica?

The more I learn, the less interested I am in arguing about which one is “better.” They represent different tastes, traditions, and experiences.

Robusta is a huge part of Vietnam’s coffee identity. Arabica gives Dalat Collective an opportunity to show American consumers another side of Vietnamese coffee, and varieties like Yellow Bourbon take that story even further.

Someone who thinks they already know what “Vietnamese coffee” tastes like might try one and realize:

Vietnamese coffee doesn’t have one taste.

More Than a Bag of Coffee

When I started Dalat Collective, I thought I was building a coffee brand. The longer I do this, the more I see it as building a bridge.

On one side are the farms, farmers, varieties, processing methods, culture, relationships, and everything I’m continuing to learn here in Vietnam.

Thousands of miles away, someone in America opens a bag, grinds the beans, and makes their morning coffee. They may never meet the farmer or visit Đà Lạt. They might never see a Yellow Bourbon coffee tree.

But they can taste what came from it.

If Dalat Collective can make that connection a little more visible, then we’re doing something beyond simply selling coffee. We’re giving people another way to experience Vietnam.

I started with Arabica because I thought it made sense for the American market. But exploring coffee here has taught me something much bigger: there is no single “Vietnamese coffee.”

Different regions. Different farmers. Different varieties. Different processes. Different traditions.

And there’s still a lot more for me to discover.

When I find something worth sharing, the goal remains simple:

Bring it from Đà Lạt to the world.

Jovany
Founder, Dalat Collective