The Vietnamese robusta coffee bean, a more-caffeinated cousin of the ubiquitous arabica bean, features heavily in Say Coffee House’s beverage program.
The new coffee house soft opens today, aiming to bring Vietnamese coffee culture and style to the Grand Central District of St. Petersburg. The shop will import 100% robusta beans from Vietnam.
Say offers “traditional Vietnamese brewing methods, but with a modern twist,” owner Haley Huynh said by phone Tuesday.
In Vietnamese, “say” means to be drunk, or to have drunk too much caffeine or had too much coffee, she said.
The shop’s focus is on the slow phin method of brewing coffee, which involves ground coffee dripped through a metal phin filter, creating a concentrated brew with a bold taste. The aluminum drip brewer used with this method is most associated with Vietnamese iced coffee that’s typically served with condensed milk.
The coffee house serves an assortment of coffee, matcha and tea drinks topped with cold foams like egg, ube and banana cream. The shop has an espresso machine to make lattes and other Western coffee staples, too, and offers items like the Marble Drip with condensed milk, espresso and milk.
Look for items like Matcha Einspanner (sweet cream foam), Egg Cream Coffee and Salted Cream Honey Green Tea on the menu.
After making trips to Saigon in Vietnam and noticing the growth of the vibrant coffee culture there, Huynh and her business partner Huy Howanted to bring that cafe culture to St. Petersburg, she said.
Huynh also owns a boba shop in Pinellas Park called Sip Tea Boba.
Huynh said that in Vietnam people like to sit outside at coffee shops, in an open environment in low-slung chairs where they can chat or work — and “that’s exactly what we’re bringing here.”
2414 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. @saycoffeehouse.
We’d love to know where you go for Vietnamese coffee. Tell us in the comments.
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