Representation in Coffee Culture with Vinepair

Vinepair's Emily Saladino chatted with Nguyen Coffee Supply founder Sahra Nguyen on the perceptions of Vietnamese coffee in today's world and representation in the surrounding culture. Read some key points below:

• Nguyen Coffee Supply's social media channels feature photos of young coffee drinkers of color, including Nguyen herself. For some consumers, this simple act of representation feels radical because craft coffee marketing is so often dominated by white faces.

• “Everyone in the world drinks coffee. The producers of coffee are people of color. I drink coffee … Why are we not being reflected?” Nguyen says. She remembers showing friends some promotional Nguyen Coffee Supply photos of herself sipping from a mug. They told her, “‘This shouldn’t feel revolutionary, but it feels revolutionary,’” she recalls. “They’ve never seen that image.”

• Casting a few models of color in select advertisements doesn’t disrupt industry-wide power structures, of course, but it sure does show the value of diversifying businesses at all levels. It’s exciting to see what can happen when we amplify different voices and remain open to what everyone has to say.

• “Before Nguyen Coffee Supply, all of my work has been centered around representation, diversity, inclusion, community empowerment,” Nguyen says. “So for me, being the creator and producer of this culture and this company, that’s what I want to channel out.”

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Read the full publication in Vinepair.

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