Why Vietnamese Coffee Culture Won My Heart — A Note From Jim

I've had coffee in cities known for it — Melbourne's laneway cafes, Thailand's beloved cafe scene. Both are incredible, and I still think about them. But nothing has stuck with me quite like Vietnamese coffee culture, and it's why I opened Yanna's in San Enrique, Iloilo.

Melbourne's coffee culture is precise — third-wave, single-origin, competition-grade baristas. Thailand's is warm and social, cafes built for lingering. Vietnam's is different. It's slower, more deliberate. You order a phin, and you wait. The coffee drips one drop at a time, and that patience is the point — it's part of the ritual, not something to rush past.

What really won me over, though, is how creative Vietnamese coffee culture is. Take coconut coffee — someone decided robusta and coconut cream belonged together, and they were right. Or Hue-style salt coffee, where a pinch of salt cuts through the bitterness and makes the whole cup rounder. These aren't gimmicks. They're generations of people treating coffee as something worth experimenting with, not just caffeine to get through the morning.

That's the spirit I wanted to bring to San Enrique — real phin-brewed coffee, made the traditional way, with the same inventive drinks that make Vietnamese coffee culture so special. Not a copy of Melbourne, not a copy of Thailand — just an honest cup of Vietnamese coffee, brewed slow, in a small town in Iloilo.

Come sit with a phin and see what I mean.