Today we’d like to introduce you to Emmy Le
Hi Emmy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My sister, Amy and I, started our company, Le’DRIP Coffee and Tea late 2022. We moved from Vietnam to the US in our early 20’s and there are so many things we miss about Vietnam, the coffee culture among the ones we miss most. Although the coffee scene in Houston was already incredibly diverse and rich, we still couldn’t find the specific Vietnamese flavors we were looking for. Up until this point, locally, Vietnamese restaurants were where you’d go to get a cup of Vietnamese coffee. Still what about those who just wanted to pop in somewhere quick without walking through a whole dining hall? Vietnamese coffee also isn’t just “ca phe sua da”, it is much more than that.
So we started looking into this idea of creating a space for the folks that may not already know all about Vietnamese coffee to try a variety of authentic, fun and unique flavors, with more ease than walking into a restaurant. We ran with that idea and began talking to a variety of coffee and tea suppliers in Vietnam. To be as authentic as possible, it was important for us to use Vietnamese coffee beans and tea. As a side note, the majority of coffee beans you see today in the US is Arabica while Vietnam is known for our Robusta beans. This type of coffee bean is more robust, darker, more bitter and carries a higher amount of caffeine. Vietnam is number two in the world in terms of volume production, only behind Brazil. We are proud to use only coffee beans and tea imported directly from Vietnam, custom roasted for our brand.
We were lucky enough to find a tiny space in Dun Huang Plaza, Chinatown that afforded us that great visibility to an incredibly large traffic coming through every weekend. For a brand new company, to place ourselves in a location where it was known for all the major boba tea brands, it was a scary start. But Amy and I had faith in our brand. We knew that we were introducing something new into the area and we loved every single thing we put out. We knew people would love our products too once they got to try it.
It has not been that long of a journey. Our first store in Chinatown opened in October 2023 and we have been blessed with all the love and support from this community. Our customers travel to us from near and far. We have got to talk to people from all walks of life. Some have become friends. This year 2025 is a big year for our company. We are working on our second location in Richmond area. Our goal is to be more accessible to our customers and this is hopefully the start of that happening.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The journey has not been without its speed bumps along the way and I am sure the challenges were not unique to us. Every single small business owner has been through the issues of staffing, costs, funding, fluctuations of the market, etc. This is our first ever business so we did make many mistakes in the beginning learning the ropes.
Our Chinatown store was opened three months later than anticipated due to construction delays. Today, we are still facing the problems of rising costs of ingredients locally and internationally. Some of our key ingredients, take eggs as example, have had a price surge up to 200%. For a small business, these changes can be very difficult to navigate. Hopefully it is only temporary and we can persevere through this tough period.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are a local company that specializes in Vietnamese drip coffee and tea. We source and import our own coffee and tea from Vietnam and are proud to use high quality ingredients in our drinks. Our coffee is exclusively brewed the way it has always been brewed in Vietnam, with a “phin” drip filter.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Some of the things I miss so much about Vietnam and growing up there were the street food. My mom would stop by a street vendor after picking me up from school to get herself a ca phe sua da while I enjoyed a freshly pressed sugarcane juice. Both things now you can find in our store. Every time I brew coffee at the store, the fragrance transports me back to that beautiful time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ledripus.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ledripcoffeeandtea/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ledrip-coffee-and-tea-houston-4
