Vietnam | Loc Rung Natural
👁 The Divine Details
- Origin: Vietnam
- Region: Lam Dong Provence, Lac Duong District
- Process: Natural
- Variety: Catimor
- Altitude: 1500-1600 MASL
- Roast Level: Light - Medium
- Flavor Notes: Papaya, oolong tea, jackfruit, brown sugar, lime
🕯️ The Sensory Sacraments
A humble attempt to quantify the ineffable joys (and judgments) of this cup.
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Body
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Acidity
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Sweetness
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Balance
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Finish
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Complexity
Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world. You'd never know it from most specialty roaster shelves — because the industry wrote Vietnam off as a commodity origin a long time ago and largely never looked back.
We looked back.
Lộc Rừng — which translates to "Nature's Gift" — is a small processing operation in the highlands of Lam Dong Province, nestled between two primary forests at 1,500 meters. Managed by Kate and Leo, this is a team of four or five people doing work that most operations ten times their size can't touch. Ripe-cherry-only standards. Relentless fermentation experimentation. A deep commitment to sustainability that Kate calls foundational to her entire generation of Vietnamese coffee professionals.
This lot is processed through their in-house Ferveo method — named from the Latin "to bubble" — where cherries are fermented in spring water for a full 192 hours before slow drying on raised beds for up to 20 days. The bubbling they watch for during peak fermentation isn't just visual drama. It's a sign that something alive is happening in there. Healthy biological transformation. The kind that produces papaya, jackfruit, oolong tea, and a lime brightness that has absolutely no business being this elegant.
We paid $6.69/lb FOB, and just over $9/lb landed for this coffee. More than double the commodity price. Because that's what it takes to actually support the people doing this work — and because frankly, it's worth every cent.
This is a limited lot. Get it while it exists.
