epic-coffee-roaster

by Kenta Mori · March 28, 2026

Most cafés that roast are cafés first. Epic is the other way around. </Quote> Roasting since 2014, ISO-certified workshop, supplying beans to shops across the country — and the café at 49 Ngô Thời Nhiệm is where the public gets to sit inside the operation. That's the correct order of operations, and you can taste it. The room tells you immediately. EPIC COFFEE ROASTER in spaced serif capitals on raw exposed concrete above the bar. Mint-green subway tile cladding the long bar. And on the bar itself: a wooden cold-brew drip tower, dripping all day, next to bags of EPIC COFFEE beans. That's not decoration. That's the supply chain sitting where you can see it. The beans are the story. Cầu Đất, Đà Lạt arabica is the house backbone. The menu runs to Geisha and SL28 for the serious crowd, V60 and Ethiopia naturals for the pour-over people, and a kombucha that rotates weekly for everyone else. Weekend cuppings are free — show up, taste, learn something. A roastery that teaches its customers is a roastery that's confident. Two floors, and they serve different purposes whether the management says so or not. Ground floor: the long bar, the buzz, the espresso machine. Mezzanine: window booths, long shared tables, wood beams, laptops everywhere. Kenh14 called it deadline fuel. They're right — warm amber pendants, quiet instrumental music, no loud playlists (a Foody reviewer noted this approvingly back in 2020, and it still holds). <Quote> This is a work room that serves coffee, not a coffee room that tolerates work.

Then the outside, which is the surprise: a plant-wrapped facade, a covered terrace under wooden beams, a plant-filled balcony with lattice screen. Leaf-green against concrete grey — the venue's own two-tone, earned not decorated. When the interior gets full, the terrace is the move.

Prices are honest for specialty: from 45k, garlic-cheese bread around 35k. The kind of pricing that says "we roast at scale, so you don't pay boutique markup." The bánh mì gets praised in reviews for arriving hot and crisp — small thing, but it's the difference between a roastery that respects the café half and one that doesn't. Open 7:00–22:00 daily.

The terrace deserves a longer stay than most people give it. Plant-wrapped facade, wooden beams overhead, the vespa parked out front in the photos like it's part of the furniture. When the concrete interior fills with laptop workers — and it will, by ten — the terrace is where the smart money sits. Leaf-green against grey, shade against sun, the street at a comfortable remove.

Come for the cupping. Stay for the deadline. The cold brew tower will still be dripping when you leave — it was dripping when you arrived, and it'll be dripping tomorrow. Some things in this city are constant. This is one of the good ones. The Geisha is worth the splurge, by the way — and the free weekend cupping is the best coffee education in District 3 for the price of showing up.