96b

by Sakura Ito · May 30, 2026

The global specialty industry has a robusta problem and a liberica blind spot. 96B Cafe & Roastery, on Phan Ngữ, has chosen to be the place that fixes the second one. Founded 2016 by Hana Chai. Industrial bones, white minimalism, and an obsession with liberica — the bean the rest of the industry treats as a curiosity. Here it's the main character.

The room is a workshop-classroom that happens to serve coffee: gray industrial shell, bright white surfaces, the roastery equipment visible and unapologetic. It reads as a place where things get made, because things get made here. Farm-to-cup isn't a slogan on the wall; it's the operating model. Ten coffee workshops run from this address, which tells you everything about priorities — <Quote>

a roastery that teaches is a roastery with nothing to hide.

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The liberica focus is the differentiator, and it's worth understanding why it matters. Liberica is the third species — not arabica, not robusta — grown in Vietnam but rarely taken seriously by specialty. 96B takes it seriously: single-origin lots, careful roasting, the full specialty treatment. The result is a cup that doesn't taste like anything in the arabica playbook — bigger body, stranger aromatics, the kind of coffee that makes you recalibrate. Whether you prefer it is personal. That someone is doing the work is objectively interesting.

The "cold therapy" bottled signatures are the to-go play — cold brews built for the Saigon heat, designed to survive a motorbike ride. Efficient, which I appreciate. The whole operation has a systems thinker's fingerprints: roast, bottle, teach, repeat.

The ten workshops are the part I'd actually book. A roastery that runs ten distinct coffee workshops is making a structural bet: that education creates customers, and customers create a market for liberica. It's a long game, and it's the right one. Most cafés compete on interior design. 96B competes on knowledge — which is harder to copy and compounds over time. If even a fraction of workshop attendees leave understanding what liberica is, the blind spot shrinks.

Hours are 8:00–18:00 daily — daytime only, no evening service, which is either a limitation or a sign of confidence depending on your outlook. I read it as confidence: they know what they are. A roastery, a classroom, a liberica laboratory. The café is the front door, not the business.

For the business traveler who thinks they've tried Vietnamese coffee: you haven't tried this. One workshop, one tasting flight, and you'll leave understanding why the third bean deserves a seat at the table. <Quote>

The industry's blind spot is 96B's entire business model — and it's working.

</Quote> Open 8:00–18:00 daily; go before the light goes. Order the liberica flight if they have one running, and ask about the workshops — the education is the product as much as the coffee. Hana Chai built something the industry didn't know it needed. Go taste the third bean. Open 8:00–18:00 daily; go before the light goes.