May of 2022 marked the first time I returned to Hanoi after a hiatus of nearly half a decade. Not because I refused to return, but the increasingly hectic schedule down south in Saigon, as well as the pandemic, meant a really long break from exploring the capital.
It took nearly ten days to reach Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh City on a half-beaten-up Suzuki scooter, but all that time wasn’t adequate to prepare me for a food culture shock. Half a decade had transformed Hanoi into a city filled with passionate bakers and coffee geeks. Every corner of the city’s center was a place I could sip on a fine cup of arabica, like at Kafeville and Blackbird, where I would spend countless mornings during my month-long stay sitting on tiny wooden seats, often against a wall, eavesdropping on local talk about the next hottest foodie spot to visit.
Then one fateful morning at Kafeville, when I heard someone remark “The cookies here are nice, but have you tried the one at Third Wave Roastery, those are to die for,” I knew I had to act fast.
Third Wave Coffee and Nhungissima team up to pair coffee with baked treats
Previously a tiny micro-roastery located on Cửa Nam street in Hoàn Kiếm District, Third Wave Coffee’s founder Trần Tuấn Linh, decided earlier this year that it was time to find a new home for his coffee passion, and moved to 17 Yết Kiêu, Hai Bà Trưng District.
“Did you know that I sold my entire photography hobby kit to start this [coffee] business?” Trần laughed while recounting how his love for specialty coffee led him to “intern” at several of the city’s earliest espresso joints as a cashier and buying green unroasted coffee from Ebay.
In Trần’s day’s as an “infant barista”, the number of specialty cafes in the capital “could easily be counted with fingers on a single hand”. These days, you’d need several weeks to form a basic understanding of how much Hanoians love their daily cuppa.
Churning out some of Hanoi’s earliest lattes and espresso con pannas alongside other espresso veterans such as Reng Reng, the ex-Nanoengineer turned barista-cum-coffee roaster’s natural attachment to all things Italian led him to meet Đặng Nguyên Nhung, an Environmental Engineer who spent 7 years in Italy before returning to Vietnam after acquiring a Master’s degree at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
In search of relief from her longing for Italy, Đặng would spend almost every morning before work at Trần’s “cafe” at 240 Hàng Bông Street, at that time a small balcony where he would pull espresso shots and purvey caffeinated beverages out of a tiny window.
“Every morning meant at least two cups of espresso con panna [at Linh’s place],” said Đặng.
Perhaps it was fate, but Trần could not give up the opportunity to try Đặng’s Italian-style butter cookies when she began baking in early 2022.
“I knew immediately that her cookies were the perfect match for Third Wave’s espressos,” he remarked, becoming the first cafe in the city to offer Đặng’s products, where the round and rich-tasting cookies are now an inseparable part of every hot espresso served at Third Wave Roastery.
Changing with the times, both homegrown Hanoian indie brands have evolved
Just like Trần’s coffee roasting, Đăng’s Italian baking business didn’t see a huge leap to fame in the beginning.
She began her foray into Italian food with a homemade bolognese sauce before studying baking with a chef who also returned from Italy all while still working as an Environmental Engineer.
Today, Đặng is known online as Nhungissima, and has a faithful group of followers who see her products as both treats and daily necessities and makes everything from biga-based bread to croissants and grissini. The distinctively thick and dry biga “mother dough” gives Italian bread its unique nutty-tasting chewiness and sets her baking apart from other artisanal bakers in the city.
“People are increasingly health-conscious, and sourdough-type products are now very popular in Hanoi,” Đặng explains.
Neither of them expected such a spurt in growth of Hanoi’s indie cafe and baking scene, and both Third Wave Cafe and Nhungissima now run a larger workspace than they could have imagined just a couple of years ago
With Nhungissima now expanding her product line into French-style baking such as patê sô and pain au chocolat, you’ll find more than just her butter cookies at Third Wave Roastery these days — all that goes with Third Wave Roastery’s curated list of freshly roasted coffee such as Kon Tum Province’s full-bodied and whisky-like Fine Robusta, a 90-point Geisha from Central America that’s great for drip coffee, or perhaps the Cold Brew Power blend featuring 50% Brazilian, 30% Colombian and 20% Natural-processed Ethiopian beans if you insist on having your pastries with a smooth cup of iced coffee.
Against common notions that Hanoi’s staunch traditionalists are the guardians of its celebrated food and drink culture, might collaboration between “like gourmet minds” be the way forward to usher the next wave of the capital’s growing consumer inquisitivity?
