Highland polyculture. Colonial resistance. Where a farmer asked the question that started everything.
"Do you know the hands that picked your coffee?"
A farmer asked us this simple question while we sat on the veranda, watching mist roll across the polyculture farm. We didn't know. Most people don't. That question sparked Alice and Nick's entire journey, and brought us to understand this remarkable approach to coffee farming.
This farm defies modern monoculture practices. Coffee trees grow alongside fruit trees, vegetables, and native plants, the way her grandmother farmed, the way that survived French colonial pressure to industrialize.
"They wanted us to clear everything for coffee," she explains, gesturing at the diverse canopy. "But my family knew: diversity is resilience. When one crop fails, others sustain us. The coffee tastes better too—it's not fighting the land, it's part of it."
Vietnamese coffee culture developed its own distinct character, strong, bold, integrated into daily life through the ritual of cà phê sữa đá. But in the highlands where she works, traditions run deeper than tourist cafes in Hanoi.
Her processing methods combine French colonial influence with indigenous knowledge: sun-drying on raised beds, careful sorting by hand, fermentation times adjusted to the mountain humidity. It's a technique refined over three generations of resistance to shortcuts.
Every bag funds Alice & Nick's ongoing documentation work and supports this polyculture farm directly.
