Coffee Culture

Despite Vietnam being the second largest exporter of coffee, Vietnamese coffee houses have only recently begun gaining traction in the U.S., and they’re even more rare here in KC. In fact, there are just two. The first, the beloved Cafe Cà Phê in the River Market, opened in 2022 and quickly became a KC coffee scene mainstay. The second opened at the end of May in the Northland, Origin Coi Nguon (7711 N. Oak Trafficway, KCMO).

Origin is markedly different from other coffee shops in the area. It’s not just the bamboo seating and colorful lanterns that adorn the ceiling, says owner Nhung Hoang. Every cup of coffee poured in her shop is infused with the history of Vietnam.

“[The coffee] is the Vietnamese people that make it and their story,” says Hoang. “The recipes have been passed down. The coffee farms are multigenerational. There’s hundreds of years of knowledge and history in there, and all of that comes together in this one cup that we then hand out to a customer.”

Hoang, who spent nearly a decade as a barista in coffee shops before opening her own, has a personal history with coffee as well. Her parents, from Da Nang in central Vietnam, owned coffee shops when they lived there (they moved to the U.S. when Hoang was eight). She also has family members who own coffee farms and hopes to eventually source her shop’s coffee beans directly from one of her families’ farms. Until then, she has partnered with River Phin Coffee. The California-based coffee roaster ethically sources their beans directly from small farmers in Asia, including Vietnam, where Hoang strictly buys her Robusta beans from. 

Robusta beans are the defining element of Vietnamese coffee. They have double the amount of caffeine than the more commonly found Arabica bean in stateside cafes, and they pack a dark, chocolatey punch. All of Origin’s drinks are made with this bean variety.  Some are even finished with cold foam and salt, like the delicious Salted Saigon, which tastes like salted caramel in liquid form. 

Instead of an espresso machine, Origin brews with a traditional phin filter, a four-chamber device that functions similarly to the pour-over method. Along with the Robusta beans, this also gives Origin’s drinks their strong bold flavor. 

While many in the U.S. think of coffee as strictly a breakfast beverage, Hoang suggests doing as the Vietnamese do and not limiting your coffee intake only to mornings.

“[Coffee] is part of every Vietnamese DNA,” she says. “It’s a social thing, so you drink it for breakfast, you drink it for lunch, and you drink it for dinner.”  

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