From Vietnam to Brooklyn: The Origin Story of Nguyen Coffee Supply
The story of Nguyen Coffee Supply begins with our founder, Sahra Nguyen, a first generation Vietnamese American and poster child for the “Slash Generation.” Her laundry list of creative careers include award-winning documentary filmmaker, successful restauranteur, co-founder of a podcasting agency, and a 2018 Google Next Gen Tech Policy Leader and, of course, founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply — but we’ll get to that.
Nguyen’s life as a creative was, and is, fueled by determination and countless cups of coffee. A lifelong caffeine enthusiast, Nguyen grew up exploring the new and exciting coffee concepts that were cropping up in New York and around the world. However, no matter where she traveled, she couldn’t help but notice the huge misperception surrounding coffee beans grown in Vietnam. Small-time roasters and big coffee companies alike were calling the beans “inferior,” which felt irrelevant to Nguyen, since beans don’t exist in a hierarchy. She immediately saw the opportunity to properly showcase the distinct profiles of the arabica and robusta beans grown in Vietnam by roasting and selling them fresh in Brooklyn.
However, Nguyen knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with opening another hip, Brooklyn-based coffee shop. What she really wanted to do was to use coffee to tell a story while creating new opportunities for people within the global coffee community.
Nguyen was sure it wouldn’t be a tough sell to convince a new audience that they’d love coffee grown in Vietnam. After all, the country is the second largest coffee producer in the world and the number one producer of robusta beans, which means that many people around the globe are already enjoying Vietnamese coffee beans — they just don’t realize it.
Since a majority of Nguyen’s extended family lives in Vietnam, she grew up visiting the country often and developed a strong connection to Vietnamese food, culture, and coffee. And once she set on the mission to rewrite the narrative of coffee from Vietnam, the first step was to source her beans.
It was Nguyen’s aunt who introduced her to Mr. Ton, a fourth generation farmer who owns and operates his family farm in Vietnam’s famed Central Highlands. In 2016, the pair visited the farm together and established a direct-trade and honest relationship to bring his green coffee beans to the U.S. for the first time.
Thus, Nguyen Coffee Supply was born. Nearly four years later, Nguyen and NCS continue to expand third-wave coffee culture by celebrating diversity in the coffee community, offering ethically sourced organic beans, and championing the people behind the world’s second largest coffee production.
--
Shop our Vietnamese Coffee Starter Kit here.
Shop our Vietnamese Coffee Trio and try both arabica & robusta coffee.
Learn more about the rise of Vietnamese coffee here.
See the journey of our coffee from farm to cup here.
