Keep it just between us Trekker Café is actually Saigon’s secret gateway to the world of theK’Ho ethnic group. So you don’t just get to sip the rich brew of K’Ho grown coffee, you can also sign up for walking expeditions into the dense Lam Dong forests of the Central Highlands and immerse yourself in K’Ho culture.

The K’Ho are a matriarchal society in which the women ‘catch’ husbands for whom they may be required to pay a hefty bridegroom price. Children take the mother’s name, and family life is based around stilted longhouses gathered in small hamlets called ‘Bon’.

Although little known outside of Vietnam the K’Ho are locally famous for their poetical and musical celebrations evoking the spirits of sun, moon, river, and earth. That spiritual lyricism seduced the original founders of Trekker Café who decided to celebrate the richness of the K’Ho by promoting a sustainable social enterprise system for both selling their coffee and introducing the more discerning travellers to the beauty of their lifestyle through tours. These are guided by the K’Ho themselves through their mountains and villages.

As well as being experts in the K’Ho, the Trekker Café team are experts in the outdoors and woodcraft, as demonstrated at Rocktoberfest where they demonstrated ways of lighting fire and brewing coffee on the go as you can see in our videos.

Whether it’s the K’Ho that you want to learn about, or the lush landscape of Vietnam, Trekker Café is the team to tour with. You can learn more about Trekker Café tours at Push Climbing, or by chilling and sipping the fine K’Ho Arabica coffee in a comfy chair at the Trekker Café in District 1.  Travellers, armchair travellers, coffee lovers and all else are welcome at Trekker.

Words by Steve Shipside.