> Lots of co-fermented specialty Vietnam-grown Robusta and Liberica at incredible prices, far cheaper than what people would find from roasters that import their beans from Colombia or any of the other big coffee-growing countries.
Robusta at least is substantially cheaper, because yields are better and it’s less affected by disease. I don’t know enough about Liberica to know how it yields.
Also, “co-fermented coffee” generally is just code for flavored pre-roast flavored these days, especially out of Colombia. Not sure if that’s made it to Vietnam, but I’m always going to raise an eyebrow with co ferments these days. Not that they can’t be tasty, but they shouldn’t command a price premium if it’s essentially just flavored coffee in my view.
Yes, co-fermented coffee tends to be lower quality coffee that is co-fermented with flavouring juice to cover the lack of quality. That's not the case of all co-ferments but it's a significant enough number of them that it's usually something to avoid unless you really trust the roaster and farm.
Any co fermented coffee I've had in Vietnam has been anaerobic fermented with something else like strawberry.