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Comment by a012 | Hacker News Reader

> All the vietnamese coffee ... “french” roast aka burnt bad coffee

You're describing traditional Vietnamese coffee for ca phe sua or ca phe den, it's close to burnt coffee because the sourced coffee beans are shit so they have to roast close to charcoal that's why we have to add a lot of sugar or condensed milk.

If you want to have coffees that taste close to specialty coffee then there are some local shops that colab or have their own farms that grow quality beans, but Idk if there's exporting roasted coffees.

I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee. Then the recommended way would be traveling to Vietnam, maybe?

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Taste preferences are different too.

Robusta coffees are much more popular across Asia, and there is a preference to mix coffee with milk.

In Europe and the US, there is a preference to drink Arabica coffee neat.

Starbucks had to pivot away from coffee to tea in India for that reason, and Starbucks in Vietnam failed due to their Arabica heavy bias [0] (also, Coffee shops in VN tend to also serve an equally robust Tea menu, which Starbucks fails at)

There are some solid coffee purist shops in D3, but the average consumer prefers Highland, Phuc Long, or Trung Nguyen Legend style shops and mixed coffees.

That said, the same problem mentioned in the blog above are slowly manifesting in VN as well. My in-laws are/were coffee farmers in Gia Lai, but they and their peers have pivoted to nuts like Macadamias instead because margins are better and Coffee is too commoditized

> I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee

Yep.

VN has a good FMCG market now, but they don't really target the US for exports.

[0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66167222

It really has gotten to the point that different coffee should be treated as different teas. Nobody expect that the different teas should taste the same. For some reason, the expectation is largely that coffee should be coffee.

And, it is mind bending for some folks to hear that I abhor the taste of arabica coffee. It is so so bad.

Claiming you dislike Arabica is a weird statement. There is a bigger diversity inside of Arabica varietals alone than in tea and wine. So that part bends my mind.

> coffee should be coffee.

I'm one of the lucky people where any coffee is coffee for me. McDonald's, Starbucks, instant coffee, specialty coffee, cat pooped coffee? Yup, it tastes like coffee, I'm good to go.

I'm similar, with the exception of Starbucks. I just can't stand it. But that makes it easy to avoid.

I put cream and sometimes sugar in my coffee, so I'm surely obscuring most of the subtleties.

But to me, Starbucks still tastes terrible (burned), and Dunkin Donuts is nasty.

In recent years I've ordered my roasted coffee from coffeebeanery.com, and I've been pretty happy. I'm pretty sure all of the varieties I get are Arabica.

If you don't like arabica, what are you drinking? Robusta? How are you drinking it?

Indeed, robusta. It amuses me that I'm probably fine with folgers and/or whatever cheap coffee you can get when in a hotel. At home, I think death wish is the only easy way I know to buy robusta whole bean.

I have had specialty robusta (I have some green robusta in my house right now) but it has always been pretty tough to drink for me, but I don't like adding sugar or milk to my coffee most of the time.

I take my coffee neat, most of the time. Have had more lattes than otherwise lately. And, oddly, that is the only way I can take the taste of arabica coffee. :D

Funny! I have had robusta black, both espresso and filter, and man it just doesn't do it for me.

I think the funniest realization on my end, was that liking Folgers wasn't just me liking "cheap" coffee. :D

What about arabica do you detest, specifically? What of origin, processing, roasting, and brewing differences?

Arabica produces such a varied spectrum of cups, it’s really quite head scratching to hear you write off the entire species, yet still hear you drink robusta.

Fair if you are proposing that I probably would not hate all of it? Do you pursue robusta at the same level?

For specifics, its been a while since I tried it. I can seek out some to try again, if you want. I don't think it is as extreme as the "tastes like soap" reaction that many have on cilantro, but I'm growing to think it has to be similar.

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