Home of The Proper Hot Chocolate
Edinburgh’s Trend Setting Hot Chocolate!
Direct Trade - Single Origin - Speciality Coffee
Our Flagship Coffee
Farmed by: Son Nguyen Van
Exported + Roasted + Served by: Uplands Roast
Picked by: Son Nguyen Van + Students
Origin: Son Pacamara Coffee Farm, Ward 5, Da Lat, Vietnam
Farm Size: 4 Hectares
Altitude: 1500m
Longitude: 108.390083
Latitude: 11.956990
Varietals: Arabica Blend - Typica, Catuai, Catura, Bourbon
Bean Size: >=16 + >=18
Process: Fully Washed
Tasting Notes: Chocolate, Citrus, Herbal, Balanced
Additives/Preservatives: None
Good Intentions
Son took the decision almost a decade ago to change his farming practices to cultivate premium speciality coffee and focus his efforts on quality over quantity. As his success has grown over the years, he now has been internationally recognised as a leading speciality coffee producer in Vietnam.
Now judging speciality coffee competitions in Vietnam and advising others, Son is teaching his ways to the wider community free of charge. Volunteers from across Vietnam come to learn from Son, to help on his farm and to join his 'coffee club’ hosted in his home.
This dedication to quality allows the speciality coffee market to provide wide-reaching community development through creating direct trade networks, increased revenue for the farm, and useful education in Vietnam.
We have been very lucky to have met Son and to have a small supply of his coffee. It was our community development business plan, interest in wider social issues and the 10p (per cup of coffee sold we direct back to the farm) that encouraged Son to sell us his sought-after coffee - which is not otherwise available!
Quality Farming Practices
There have been no artificial or chemical fertilisers used on our coffee and the coffee has been surrounded by mutually beneficial trees to support their ecosystem, provide shade and provide fertiliser - such as Persimmon, Banana or Soy.
Keeping a farm genuinely organic requires a sealed tunnel with purified water. As this is an open-top farm which is on a slope (subject to runoff from other land) it is extremely difficult to make the coffee 100% organic - although we know Son is always looking for ways to improve his practices.
Direct Trade
We organise the export and import of our coffee as this allows us to manage how the coffee is stored and transported - and because we have to if we buy the coffee in person at the farm!
We arrange for the coffee to travel by truck from Da Lat to Ho Chi Minh City. From HCMC the coffee travels via ship to Felixstowe in the UK. From here we forward the coffee directly to The Meadows, Edinburgh.
The Way We Roast
Our coffee is roasted in Edinburgh. Through prolonged trial and error, we are now able to bring out the best flavours from our coffee at various roast degrees. It has been a fascinating process learning to roast, sharing our ideas and cupping coffee while defining the optimum roast profiles.
We used to roast all the coffee in the coffee shop on the small roaster shown here yet we quickly outgrew this and now work with Santu Coffee to roast our coffee with their big roaster in a more suitable environment than in a trailer on the street!
