Located in a small alley on Vo Thi Sau Street, District 3, The Hummingbird Cafe has the appearance of an old French villa built in the 1950s. "When renovating, we kept the structure, architecture and ancient beauty of the house intact. We even asked the builders to remove the raised foundation after many times of changing owners, revealing the intact shape of the old-fashioned tiles," Tran Ba Hoa, Co-founder of The Hummingbird Cafe, shared with Travellive.
The Hummingbird Cafe was renovated from an old French villa, retaining the original architecture.
Entering The Hummingbird Cafe, customers still feel the nostalgia of the old architecture, while seeing some modern decorations mixed harmoniously in this space. The front yard is gentle with many green trees, with open space to welcome natural sunlight, creating an airy, cool space. Moving inside, you will feel the closeness and warmth like entering a house.
Specialty coffee, what's special?
The Hummingbird Cafe was born in 2018 from the dream of three specialty coffee enthusiasts who wanted to focus on quality and sustainability while spreading the joy of enjoying delicious coffee and baked goods made entirely in-house.
In addition to serving coffee, Hummingbird also sells some cakes made by Mr. Hoa's wife.
The menu does not offer many choices of drinks, mainly popular dishes such as: Espresso, Americano, Cappuccino, Latte... But there is a wide variety of specialty coffee beans for you to choose from: Peru COE #2 Gesha, Vietnam THA1, Ethiopia Berg Wu Selection, Colombia Mokka, Kenya Pb Top Grade, VN Catimor Langbiang, VN Catimor Radar farm..
Specialty Coffee is probably no longer a strange concept to coffee connoisseurs. It not only simply maintains the inherent quality of coffee, but also enhances the value of coffee through many different stages. From the stage of carefully selecting coffee from farms, exporters, mills; to putting coffee into the roaster with meticulously adjusted temperature, time... to produce delicious batches of coffee. Barista is not only responsible for preserving all the quality attributes of coffee after roasting, but also "expressing" them to customers.
Customers love to learn about the origin, production method, types of beans... especially how to make a cup of coffee.
As life becomes more developed, the need for consumers to enjoy experiences is increasingly enhanced. "Coffee is no longer simply a daily consumption product for people rushing to work. Coffee lovers are becoming more aware and will go back to the previous stages of the production chain to research the origin, type, and processing method," said Ba Hoa.
Coffee roasting skills are considered the most important in determining the distinctive flavor of each type of coffee on the menu of the shop, or the packaged coffee products that the Blue in Green factory - located on the campus of The Hummingbird - is currently trusted by many specialty coffee shops.
The Hummingbird Cafe focuses on production to produce the best products for consumers.
The one and only The Hummingbird Cafe!
It is known that before stabilizing the production facility and cafe at Vo Thi Sau - District 3, The Hummingbird started as a small-scale rooftop cafe located in an old apartment building at Ton Duc Thang - District 1. The Hummingbird Cafe at Vo Thi Sau was born and operated in parallel for about a year before closing the facility at 5H Ton Duc Thang in 2020.
It is difficult to standardize the quality of multiple coffee shops in a chain and optimize the customer experience at the same time.
"At first, I still thought and cherished the plan to open a chain of coffee shops, with many different styles but still ensuring consistent quality. However, in reality, it is very difficult to synchronize the quality of the shops and bring optimal experience to customers. So, since 2021, I have only maintained the model of combining only one shop and a shared workshop," Ba Hoa confided.
He added that in the future, the shop will only expand its space to increase coffee production capacity. The Hummingbird still maintains its spirit of providing customers with the experience of carefully produced and brewed specialty coffee and handcrafted cakes of good quality. There is only one coffee shop with the name The Hummingbird!
The shop focuses on production quality and customer experience value.
Hummingbirds are the smallest of all birds. They can flap their wings up to 70 times per second to fly high. When asked about the meaning of the cafe's name, Ba Hoa smiled: "Although small in size, this type of bird has a strong vitality and ability to survive. Just like the desire of the team when operating this small cafe, always try their best to produce high-quality specialty coffee products for customers."
Hummingbird is also the only bird family capable of flying backwards, as a metaphor for the ability to dare to step back from the strong development of the commercial coffee business, to invest in research on the origin, species, processing methods... to suit the diverse needs of customers of The Hummingbird Cafe brand.
