I Never Planned to Start a Coffee Company

What Đà Lạt Taught Me About Coffee, Farmers, and the Business Behind Every Cup

I Didn't Know How Much I Didn't Know

Before getting involved in coffee, a coffee bean was basically a coffee bean to me.

I knew there was Arabica and Robusta( I called this one the Vietnamese crack ). I knew some coffee tasted better than others. I knew roast levels made a difference.

That was about it.

When I moved to Đà Lạt, one of the first things I did was recreate something I already had back home in the States: my own little home coffee setup.

I bought a Breville personal espresso machine, a grinder, and probably more coffee accessories than I actually needed. I started collecting different brewing tools and experimenting with different methods at home.

Espresso. Pour-over. Vietnamese phin. Different grind sizes. Different ratios. Different beans and roast levels.

I started buying coffee from around Đà Lạt and tasting it at home. Sometimes I'd make the same coffee several different ways just to see what changed.

At first, I was simply having fun with it.

But tasting coffee side by side made me start paying attention.

Why was one coffee more acidic?

Why did another taste sweeter?

Why did one work beautifully as a pour-over but taste completely different as espresso?

Why could two bags of coffee grown around Đà Lạt taste nothing alike?

Those questions eventually started taking me outside my kitchen.

A Coffee Tour That Turned Into a Friendship

One of the people who has probably influenced my coffee education the most is Thao.

And we met almost completely by chance.

I originally met him through a coffee tour here in Đà Lạt.

At the time, I was simply interested in learning more about the local coffee industry. We talked, exchanged contact information afterward, and stayed in touch.

Over time, that professional connection became something more valuable to me.

Thao became a real local friend.

He also became a consultant for Dalat Collective.

Thao has a wealth of knowledge about the coffee industry, and he's been incredibly generous about sharing it with me from farming and varieties to processing, roasting, sourcing and understanding how the local coffee business actually works.

A lot of what I'm learning isn't something you can understand by reading a label on a bag. Sometimes you need to stand on a farm and have someone show you. You need to see the cherries. You need to see how they're sorted. You need to understand why one farmer does something differently from another. You need someone who knows the industry well enough to explain not only what is happening, but why.Thao has been one of those people for me. So I want to give him some recognition here because Dalat Collective's story wouldn't be the same without his knowledge, guidance and friendship. And the funny part is that none of it started as a business relationship.

It started with a coffee tour.

That's something I've come to appreciate about my life in Đà Lạt. Some of the most meaningful opportunities I've found here have started simply by meeting people, being curious and staying connected.

Then Coffee Became Much Bigger Than Espresso

The more Thao and other people around the industry taught me, the more I realized how little the brewing equipment on my counter represented.

Making espresso was the final few minutes of a process that might have taken years to reach my kitchen.

Suddenly I was hearing about varieties like Catimor, Typica, Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon and Robusta, among others.

Then came elevation, soil, weather, plant health, cherry ripeness, harvesting, fermentation, drying, moisture, sorting, defects and bean size.

Then processing.

Then roasting.

Then cupping.

Then packaging and storage.

Then logistics.

Then the economics behind all of it.

Coffee started looking a lot more like wine to me.

The variety matters. The land matters. The climate matters. The farmer matters. The processing matters. And what happens afterward can either preserve all that work or destroy it.

Two coffees grown relatively close to each other can produce completely different experiences in the cup.

And suddenly my Breville machine at home wasn't just making my morning coffee anymore.

It had become my little laboratory.

I would bring what I was learning back home, grind another coffee, pull another shot, make another pour-over and see if I could actually taste what people were teaching me.

Sometimes I could.Sometimes I couldn't.And that's part of the fun. I'm still learning.

When I look at Dalat Collective now, I realize how little of it came from a traditional business plan and how much of it grew naturally through relationships, curiosity, and opportunity. A coffee tour introduced me to Thao. That friendship gave me a deeper understanding of the industry, which led to farmers, processors, different coffee varieties, roasting, and eventually the financial and operational side of bringing coffee from Đà Lạt to customers in America.

In many ways, building Dalat Collective felt natural to me. My background in leadership and operations taught me how to organize people, build systems, solve problems, and turn ideas into something functional. My entrepreneurial spirit made me constantly ask, “What can we do with this?” And my natural tendency to connect with people and help others made the relationship side of the business come easily.

I began seeing opportunities beyond simply selling coffee. I saw farmers with great products, local people with generations of knowledge, and different individuals who each brought something valuable to the process. Sometimes what was missing was simply someone willing to connect those pieces.

One relationship led to another. One question led to another opportunity. And somewhere between learning about coffee, building friendships, helping connect people, and figuring out how all the pieces could work together, a hobby became an idea, and that idea became Dalat Collective.