From kem chuối to salty cream: The rise of Vietnamese coffee shops in Minnesota

Jenny Nguyen, owner of Càphin, said her specialty coffee drinks are inspired by Vietnamese desserts her parents made for her as a child.  

One of her recent concoctions was inspired by kem chuói, a frozen dessert with smashed banana, coconut cream and peanuts. She serves this special drink two months a year at her coffee shop in Linden Hills. 

Nguyen said creating recipes is a channel to “lean into my creativity and kind of come up with things that let people get to know a little bit more about me, but without actually talking to me.”

Over the past decade, Vietnamese coffee has become a global trend with social media influencers posting how-to guides for turning a Starbucks drink into a Vietnamese coffee dupe. 

Specialty Vietnamese coffee shops have spread from Hanoi to Europe to Orange County, California, to New York City. 

Now the Twin Cities are catching up, with new Vietnamese coffee shops “popping up like dandelions over here,” Nguyen said. 

Several owners of new Twin Cities coffee shops said they got their inspiration from travelling along the West Coast and in Vietnam. 

“Not many people, at least in the Midwest, are familiar with Vietnamese coffee,” said Dat Vu, owner of Phê Coffee. “But once they try it out, now it’s kind of their new favorite drink.”

A couple that owns a small coffee shop in Hue, Vietnam, are credited with inventing the first specialty Vietnamese coffee, salty cream coffee, or cà phê muôi, in 2010, according to CNN. From there, Instagramable specialty drinks have exploded around the world — Vietnamese coffee shops offer dessert coffees, topped with a variety of Asian flavors, such as coconut cream, chia jelly, durian, boba and sweet corn. 

At Phê Coffee customers can order Vietnamese coffee topped with a salty and cheesy foam. The durian (a pungent Southeast Asian fruit) cream coffee is a unique drink at Giọt Cream Coffee, and Sunday’s Cà Phê offers a ginger phin-brewed tonic coffee.

Mimi Nguyen, one of Giọt’s owners, said customers are often surprised by how delicious her unexpected flavor combinations are. 

“There’s so much cultural memory tied to ingredients like grass jelly, pandan, coconut, and young rice,” she said. “These are things we grew up eating at home or during family gatherings. So when someone tries one of our drinks, they’re getting a taste of something that feels familiar to us — even if it’s totally new to them.”

Two of the new shops plan to open second locations soon. Phê Coffee in Lowertown, which opened in March will have a second location on Grand Avenue, but they have not yet released their opening date. Giọt Cream Coffee opened as a weekend pop-up in Dinkytown in July 2024, and will open a new, seven-day-a-week location in Richfield in September. 

Traditional Vietnamese coffee is strong and bitter, made from robusta coffee beans, complimented by the sweetness of condensed milk and served on ice. One Vietnamese coffee is equivalent to about four shots of espresso. 

Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee bean exporter, after Brazil, providing mostly robusta beans. 

Some owners said Americans think Vietnamese coffee is inferior because robusta beans are often used to make instant coffee, but the goal of many of these entrepreneurs is to demonstrate that when brewed properly, Vietnamese coffee is high quality. 

“We are not inferior, and we are not the underdog,” said Jenny Nguyen. “We are definitely getting up there and giving Vietnamese coffee and Vietnamese culture the recognition that it deserves.” 

Erica Dao, owner of Sunday’s Cà Phê, said Vietnamese coffee is brewed slowly, and people in Vietnam spend a long time drinking it together. 

“It’s not about grabbing a quick coffee and being on your way and going to work,” Dao said. “It’s about enjoying the moment, savoring it and connecting with people.”

Simon Nguyen, of Giọt Cream Coffee said the Twin Cities has room for many Vietnamese coffee shops because each one is unique in its aesthetic and approach to flavors. 

Giọt Cream Coffee

Giọt (pronounced yacht) started as an online coffee shop through a Vietnamese community page on Facebook. Customers would visit Simon and Mimi Nguyen’s home to try their egg-cream coffee. 

Simon Nguyen said growing up in Vietnam, there was a coffee shop on every block, and his parents brewed coffee every morning. 

“It’s kind of in our blood,” he said. 

Giọt also offers “white coffee” drinks, which are Vietnamese coffee mixed with milk, for customers who prefer sweet drinks over strong coffee. Aside from coffee, Giọt offers pastries and matcha tea topped with a variety of creams, including a sweet corn cream. 

Now, the couple are working to open their second location in Richfield in mid-September. Nguyen said his goal is to create a community space for his customers to enjoy an everyday luxury at affordable prices. 

Both Nguyen and his wife are still working full-time at other jobs — he as a software engineer and she at a nail salon. They both work from about 5 in the morning until midnight to maintain their business while working full-time, but Nguyen said he dreams of working full-time at Giọt. 

“It’s our passion,” Nguyen said. “We’ve been doing it for like almost two years, and we worked so hard.”

Phê Coffee

Dat Vu, an owner of Phê Coffee, and his family always craved Vietnamese coffee, but they could never find a Vietnamese coffee shop in the Twin Cities, or at least in their neighborhood. Vietnamese restaurants offered coffee, but Vu said he wanted a casual place where he could relax and drink coffee. 

“We thought why not just do it here as well and bring it to the community and make it more accessible,” Vu said. 

Vu opened Phê Coffee this March in Lowertown St. Paul, with his wife, sister-in-law and her husband. 

“We wanted to not only focus on the vision of the Vietnamese community, but broadly share it with others,” Vu said. 

He said customers of all ethnicities come to Phê to enjoy traditional Vietnamese coffee as well as snacks and classic drinks. 

Vu’s favorite non-coffee drink is the “rePHEsher,” a sweet hibiscus tea topped with orange slices and hibiscus leaves. The shop also offers paninis, including a “banhmini,” a banh mi sandwich in the shape of a panini. 

Vu said he might some day open 10 coffee shops around the Twin Cities. 

“I think, by virtue of us being immigrants, we’re kind of willing to take risks,” Vu said. 

Vu said the second location on Grand will be similar to the Lowertown location, but with the addition of a fast-casual restaurant menu of healthy, fresh Asian fusion bowls. 

Sunday’s Cà Phê

Erica Dao opened her seasonal pop-up, Sunday’s Cà Phê, in June 2024, to share a piece of her culture with the broader community. 

“I really wanted to just pay respects to just my heritage and the sacrifices that my parents made by coming here to the United States,” Dao said. 

Dao said she was first inspired to open her pop-up when she learned about Nguyen Coffee Supply, a woman-owned company that gets its beans straight from farmers in Vietnam and roasts them in Brooklyn. 

“If we’re going to be making Vietnamese coffee, we should be using Vietnam-origin coffee,” Dao said. 

Dao has done pop-ups at Bench Pressed, Soundwoven Goods, the Bungalow Club and more. Her next pop-up is Aug. 10 at the Bungalow Club from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Dao’s menu offers the traditional iced coffee, a creamy coconut latte, ginger phin-brewed tonic and caramelized banana cold-foam. She tops her drinks with mini-croissant skewers from RMY Patisserie. 

Càphin Minneapolis

Jenny Nguyen and her husband first started selling coffee out of a trailer at farmers markets. Nguyen said her trailer blew up, with lines of people waiting for coffee from when the farmer’s market opened up until close. 

Nguyen opened the brick-and-mortar shop in February 2024. 

Nguyen’s pandan latte is a fan favorite. She said she created the recipe from scratch, not having seen it anywhere else, because pandan is a common ingredient in Southeast Asian desserts. 

Nguyen grew up making Vietnamese coffee for her parents, who came to the U.S. in 1992, to help them out on busy mornings. Now, Vietnamese coffee is a way for Nguyen to teach her own kids about Vietnamese culture. 

Nguyen comes from a long line of business owners, and she said she loves working for herself. 

“I’ve always wanted to have a business ever since I was a kid,” Nguyen said. 

Nguyen is getting ready to launch a new line of business selling coffee beans. The beans will come from farmers in Vietnam and be roasted in Minneapolis.