(upbeat music) (bright music) - This is a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

It's not your quick grab and go coffee situation.

It's something where you have to sit down and actually enjoy the moment and like savor every bit.

And it's not really about the coffee.

It's not about how quickly you can get caffeinated.

It's more about this social connection.

It's more about getting together with people.

It's more about friendships.

It's more about fostering relationships.

- [Rachel] I'm headed out on a highly caffeinated journey to check out Seattle's diverse coffee scene.

From a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony in Pike Place Market, to Vietnamese flavors in Little Saigon, the city's famous coffee culture continues to evolve.

I'm Rachel Belle, host of "Your Last Meal" podcast, cookbook author and longtime journalist.

Today on "The Nosh," cafes that brew community.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) Hi, Yenvy.

- Hi, Rachel.

- Oh (laughs).

- Do you need some caffeine?

- Yes, I do.

I don't know if you do though.

- I don't (laughs).

Yenvy Pham and her sister Quynh own Pho Bac Sup Shop, Pacific Standard Time, The Boat, and Hello Em, their roastery and cafe located inside the Little Saigon Creative, a nonprofit community gathering space dedicated to Vietnamese culture.

Yenvy dreamed up a menu full of espresso drinks with Vietnamese flavors like the Cafe Maggi, homemade Maggi seasoning caramel and condensed milk, and the Cafe Chuoi, caramelized banana, coconut, egg whip, salted peanuts, and banana chips.

The Cafe Brulee is a torched egg coffee.

The coffee is shipped from a farm in Vietnam and roasted in-house.

- So robusta is our main crop source in Vietnam and we get it from one farm only.

Direct trade.

Robusta has twice a caffeine as any arabica bean.

- Wow.

- So you're so jacked.

- [Rachel] So what is in the egg cream?

How do you make it?

- It's just egg yolks.

- Okay.

- Condensed milk.

A little vanilla, and then you just whip it until it gets light and fluffy.

- It's like a Vietnamese cappuccino.

Like, that's like the foam on top.

- [Yenvy] Yeah, it is a foam on top.

It happened during the milk shortage.

- Oh, Okay.

- [Yenvy] Yeah.

Ooh, egg cream.

You put it out for me.

This is it.

- So you just blend it up.

- Yeah.

So I like things salty.

- Yeah, me too.

- I do add salt to this.

- [Rachel] Yeah, like a salty sweet.

- [Yenvy] Salt and sweet.

And then you just have it like kind of drizzle on top.

- [Rachel] It's so luscious.

- And I like to top it with more coffee.

And I like it with soybean powder because it gives it that saltiness.

(playful music) - Mm.

That is so good.

This is the best coffee I've had in the city.

- What?

- It is.

Everything has such a like nice creamy texture And all the flavors, it's not too sweet.

- Yeah.

- But it's like just enough.

And then having all of the like the little pops of like umami and the Asian flavors, it's delicious.

- I'm glad you like it.

- I always describe you to everyone as Seattle's pho royalty.

- Oh gosh.

- Because your parents opened what we think was Seattle's first all pho restaurant.

- I think we are.

- Yeah.

- Or the longest standing.

- When did they open?

- In 1982.

- Two years after immigrating to Seattle, Yenvy's parents opened an American style sandwich shop.

But their Vietnamese friends craving the comforts of home, begged her mom to put her pho on the menu.

Yenvy said when Americans caught wind, there were lines out the door.

Four months after opening the sub shop became Pho Bac, Seattle's first pho shop that the Pham sisters are still operating today behind the original boat shaped building that is now home to the restaurant, The Boat.

And your parents, did they help other people open pho restaurants?

- For sure.

Well, my parents brought over 250 families to Seattle.

- Wow.

- Yeah, it was insane.

So like my house was always very noisy.

- So what inspired you to open, Hello Em?

- It actually started with a bunch of small business owners in Little Saigon needing representation, like all of the Asian neighborhoods are always kind of trampled on or ignored because it comes down to power and money.

And then in this space I was like, we need to activate it as a small business.

Little Saigon is untapped.

It's this idea that we have so much talent here, we have a great community, and we have an identity really rooted in the Vietnamese community.

- Yeah.

- So it's kind of like, what is the next phase?

Like, our parents are retired, the old shops are closing.

Who's gonna preserve the identity of the Vietnamese community in Seattle?

- So do you feel like you're kind of doing like Vietnamese Pacific Northwest?

- I am a Seattle light.

I was born at Swedish.

How I cook and my flavor profile has definitely been influenced by the Pacific Northwest.

So like you know, one of my favorites is actually the salmon banh mi.

Yeah, I just try to captivate the Vietnamese flavor profile into a more modern way of making coffee.

- Yeah.

- I want the bean to really be able to express itself.

- Expresso itself.

- Expresso itself, thank you.

(both laugh) (chill music) - Hi.

- Rachel.

Hi, I'm Meeraf, wonderful to meet you.

- [Rachel] At Lands of Origin, you can try one of Meeraf Mamo's delicious, handmade African pastries and sit down for an abbreviated version of the hours long Ethiopian coffee ceremonies that she grew up with.

- Thank you for coming here where I get to show something that's very near and dear to my heart.

This is basically the heart of the community.

This is how people will talk about everything that is important.

For example, this was where I learned about domestic violence as a young child.

Just sitting there at the foot of the table where nobody was noticing.

This is where people talk about politics.

People talk about everything that's important.

People get to communicate and honor each other and take time to slow down.

(chill music) I grew up surrounded by coffee.

I grew up in a land of where coffee is from.

Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia.

- I didn't know that.

- Yes.

Coffee is from Ethiopia originally.

And it was discovered by a goat herder named Kaldi when he noticed that his goats were eating these red cherry beans and they started acting caffeinated.

Imagine like a bunch of goats with a couple of shots of espresso.

I grew up where there's forests and forests of coffee and waking up to the smell of coffee every single day.

And my father happens to be a coffee farmer who used to export to the United States before he passed away.

- So how would this work at home?

Is it kind of built into the culture that you would do this every day?

- It really is built into the culture.

We'll start by roasting the coffee beans, and then we will grind the coffee beans up, and then we will put it in this Jebena pot, simmer it for about 15 minutes each round, and we'll drink three rounds of it.

The first one is called an Abol, the second one is a Tona, and the third one is a Baraka coffee.

And the Baraka coffee is the blessing round.

So you don't wanna leave before, you know, you get your blessing.

- Yeah.

- Because you're gonna have a great day.

An Ethiopian coffee ceremony is normally accompanied with some snacks.

The most common snack is a popcorn.

- Why did you decide to open this business?

- I believe that there's a huge void in anything African.

Very rarely our stories are told by us.

- Yes.

- And I just wanted to be in that space and telling people the stories that have shaped my heritage.

(relaxing music) - Thank you so much for having me.

This is so special, and I just feel like I learned so much today.

I wanna learn one more thing.

How do I say thank you in Amharic?

- You say ameseginalehu.

- Ameseginalehu.

- That's beautiful, yes.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

You're welcome.

You're very welcome.

Thank you so much for coming here.

- Of course.

- [Announcer] "The Nosh" was made possible in part with the generous support of Alaska Airlines.