“The people of Bao Lam specialize in coffee cultivation, and I, like my neighbors, have been connected to this crop since childhood. Therefore, the aroma of coffee is as familiar to me as the scent of cooked rice over a fire,” Ka Nhuy recounted her feelings about coffee beans from the K'ho farmers of Hamlet 15, Bao Lam 3 Commune ( Lam Dong ). Initially, Ka Nhuy, like most farmers around her, planted and sold coffee beans in bulk after harvesting. Later, she realized that selling in bulk to traders negatively impacted farmers' income. With encouragement from her family, Ka Nhuy started roasting and grinding coffee on a small scale.
“Initially, I roasted and ground coffee manually, mainly supplying friends and relatives in Can Tho City, where my husband works. Gradually, customer demand expanded, and the Lek Coffee brand was born and widely accepted by consumers,” Ka Nhuy recounted her journey. Currently, within the Bao Lam coffee community, Lek Coffee is highly regarded for its local character, its mindset connected to the culture of the Southern Central Highlands region, and its strong links with local coffee farmers.
Not content with just roasting and grinding coffee beans and ground coffee, Ka Nhụy also had an idea: the Central Highlands' rice wine is famous for its strong, fragrant yeast and distinctive mountain and forest aroma. What if coffee beans were fermented in rice wine jars, similar to how people in Bảo Lâm and Bảo Lộc ferment tea? So, in 2022, Ka Nhụy experimented right in her own garden.
During the coffee harvest season, Ka Nhụy waits for the cherries to ripen to a red color, then harvests and dries the whole fresh coffee beans until the moisture content in the beans is 12-13%. After drying, she grinds them to remove the outer shell, dries them again, and further removes broken, black, and shriveled beans. Then she separates the remaining parchment, lightly roasts them for 3-5 minutes to reduce moisture, rinses them, and ferments them in earthenware jars for about 6 months. The jars used for fermenting the coffee are those that have already been used to ferment rice wine and still retain the aroma of the rice wine. Ka Nhụy washes the jars clean, dries them in the sun for one day, then heats them over a fire and lets them cool. Green coffee beans are filled into the jars and fermented for 6 months. After 6 months, the beans are taken out, roasted, ground, and processed into the final product. The resulting coffee beans and roasted ground coffee have the flavor of the fermented rice wine leaves.
Initially, Ka Nhụy only brewed a few jars of coffee, mainly for friends and relatives to try. Unexpectedly, the coffee beans with the aroma of Central Highlands rice wine became popular in the market. In 2024, she brewed over 200 jars, containing about 500 kg of coffee. For the 2025 coffee season, she plans to order 1,000 jars and perfect this unique coffee product. Ka Nhụy shared that to make the coffee brewed in jars taste good, the first thing is to ensure the quality of the fresh beans, carefully cultivated and harvested when ripe, and dried in the sun and wind. Then, the jars used must be the traditional type used by the K'ho people – jars of the right size, with walls 1.5-2 cm thick, allowing the yeast to soak in thoroughly. Good coffee and good jars will produce a product with a rich aroma.
Mr. Truong Van Tung, Chairman of the Provincial Farmers' Association, assessed that Ka Nhuy's solution for fermenting rice wine is a good approach, contributing to the preservation and development of local identity and beauty, aiming for mass production, and at the same time, increasing the value of local products and enhancing competitiveness in the market. The K'ho girl won the Encouragement Prize in the 8th Provincial Farmers' Technical Innovation Competition, 2024-2025.
Source: https://baolamdong.vn/doc-la-ca-phe-u-choe-cua-co-gai-k-ho-395745.html
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