Joseph Nguyen, 27, lives in South Philly and holds a 2020 Temple University degree in international business. But if you ask him what he does, the answer is much more nuanced. “I live three different lives,” he says. Nguyen performs audits for government and corporate clients, competes as a Muay Thai martial artist, and runs his Instagram-based business, The Coffee Connoisseur Club (CCC). It’s no wonder Nguyen often consumes three to five cups of coffee daily to fuel his hyperactive life.
Through his coffee business, Nguyen wants to foster a connoisseurship among customers that is “conscious and concise.” Customers anywhere in the world can order Nguyen’s specialty coffees through his Instagram store, providing their feedback and suggestions on each new release he ships to them. Beyond order fulfillment, Nguyen is on a grand mission born in part from personal setbacks.
Nguyen was born in Vietnam and moved to the United States in 1999. He grew up in Atlantic City, won a crew scholarship to Temple and enrolled in the Fox School of Business. A collapsed lung ended his crew ambitions but helped spark his interest in CBD-infused athletic recovery beverages. Nguyen entered the Be Your Own Boss Bowl business plan competition at Fox, and although he didn’t win, La Colombe expressed interest in his concept. That was encouragement enough for Nguyen to start doing pop-ups selling CBD-infused cold brew as a side hustle. When he was laid off from his auditing job in 2023, coffee called to him. He launched The Coffee Connoisseur Club with the intention of elevating coffee from a commodity to a “culmination of culture and palate.”
His quest for superior coffee strains led him back to Vietnam. “The coffee farms in Vietnam are my family,” Nguyen says. CCC sources and roasts beans from small, shade-grown operations. “Farmers sell me coffee, and I give them money,” he says simply, but tech-savvy Nguyen also helps farmers employ technology for better growing practices. He approaches coffee sourcing like a sommelier with fine wine, identifying varieties and terroir. “I go back to the roots, analyze the soil and observe what the farm grows coffee around. (Coffee beans) pick up flavor from the attributes of the soil and what grows around it.”
I go back to the roots, analyze the soil and observe what the farm grows coffee around.”
— Joseph Nguyen
Nguyen finds his farmers through “boots-on-the-ground” exploration and “random conversations with random people” who point him to the best farmers in their region. He sees these relationships as much more than the pieces of a supply chain. This is knowledge transfer with the goal of improving the product, its profitability for the farmer, and the enjoyment of coffee for the discerning consumer.
CCC may benefit from what some observers recognize as the “third wave” of coffee, evolving from a cheap commodity beverage to the elevated versions found commonly at Starbucks, and now on to something even more refined. Nguyen believes the future of coffee is already here. “People are revolting against just a Starbucks cup and are going to craft coffee that doesn’t need milk and sugar to taste good. The next steps involve furthering the innovation of extraction and the bean itself.”
Nguyen’s aspirations don’t end with The Coffee Connoisseurship Club. Unlike most subscription-based businesses, he is more concerned with impact and scale than with numbers. “Within 10 to 20 years, I want to open up a library for coffee beans — 1,000 strains under one roof from around the world, with different growing practices.”
In the meantime, Nguyen keeps his eye on what’s ahead. He aims to be “1% better every day,” working to affect nothing less than positive global change for agriculture and farmers. Coffee drinkers can join him through more mindful coffee enjoyment. As Nguyen says, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Japanese Flash Brew
Nguyen’s favorite year-round version of pour-over coffee
Yields 2-3 servings
It is a cold beverage, but not a cold brew. This method allows you to extract the flavors you would release when brewing hot coffee, but makes the flavors less volatile during consumption. The point is to shock the coffee with ice upon extraction, stabilizing flavors that you can only extract with hot water. Nguyen typically uses a beaker or serving cup.
1.4 ounces light-roasted coffee, pour over grind, ground to a sandlike texture
9 ounces ice
12 ounces hot water
- Start with 9 ounces of ice in the beaker.
- Add 1.4 ounces of ground coffee to the filter.
- Pour about 3 ounces of water over the grounds to bloom the coffee flavor.
- Then, gradually pour the remaining water in 1.5-ounce increments over four to five pours.
