About us
The master roaster and the farms behind Nam Hai Cafe
We are not a trading desk that buys sacks and resells them. The roastery, the café and the warehouse share one address at 11 Le Duan, TT Khe Sanh — fifteen minutes from the farms that supply us.
The roaster
Twelve years of learning the hard way
Nam Hai started in coffee buying cherry at the farm gate in Huong Hoa, long before owning a roaster. Those years mattered more than any course: standing at the weighing station during harvest teaches you what a 95%-ripe delivery looks like against a 70% one, and which households will keep their drying beds turned when nobody is watching.
The first roaster was a 3 kg drum in a back room, and most of what came out of it in the first year was not good. The turning point was keeping written logs: charge temperature, turning point, first crack time, drop temperature, and a cupping score for every batch. Three hundred logged batches later, patterns in the data told us what intuition never had — that Khe Sanh Catimor turns bitter past a 17% development ratio, and that our Robusta needs a slower approach to first crack than lowland beans.
Today the roastery runs a 15 kg drum and the same discipline. Every batch is logged, a retained sample from every batch is cupped against the reference profile, and anything more than 1.5 points off that profile does not ship. It is an unglamorous system, but it is the reason a café ordering the same blend in March and in September gets the same coffee.
Expertise
What we are actually qualified to say
| Area | Basis for the claim |
|---|---|
| Khe Sanh terroir | 12 harvests buying cherry in Huong Hoa; altitude, soil and rainfall figures measured on partner plots. |
| Roast profile design | Over 300 logged batches with cupping scores; profiles versioned and retained samples archived per lot. |
| Fine Robusta grading | Defect counts per 300 g and CQI Fine Robusta protocol scoring run on every green lot. |
| Espresso calibration | Dialling-in sessions delivered for every wholesale account since 2019, on-site and by video. |
| Export documentation | Certificates of origin, phytosanitary certificates and FOB Da Nang shipments handled in house. |
The farms
Thirty-eight households in Huong Hoa
Direct contracts rather than middlemen, signed before the harvest so growers know their floor price while the cherry is still on the branch.
Each contract sets a floor price 12–18% above the local cherry market and commits us to paying within 48 hours of delivery. In exchange, growers commit to selective picking above 95% ripe and to drying on raised beds instead of bare ground. Both sides can see whether the other has held up their end, which is the only reason the arrangement has lasted.
The practical effect shows up in the cup. Strip-picked cherry carries unripe and overripe fruit into the same lot, and no roast curve recovers from that. Ground drying picks up earthy notes that cuppers will describe as “Robusta character” when what they are actually tasting is a processing defect.
For specialty Arabica we go one step further and keep lots separate by farm and harvest day. Nine to twelve microlots come out of each October-to-January season, each with its own cupping score, and the grower’s name is printed on the bag.
Standards
What we promise, and how it is checked
Documented roast standard
Direct farmer partnership
Freshness guarantee
Come and taste it, or have it shipped
Visit the tasting bar at 11 Le Duan, or request a sample bundle and judge it on your own machine.
Read the roaster’s technical notes in the coffee guide.