Vietnamese Coffee: A Deep Dive

Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, and the largest producer of robusta. The country drinks coffee differently from anywhere else: stronger, sweeter, slower, and increasingly with serious attention to bean and brew.

Robusta vs arabica

Roughly 95 per cent of Vietnamese coffee is robusta, grown mostly in the Đắk Lắk and Lâm Đồng highlands. Robusta has nearly twice the caffeine of arabica, lower acidity, and a heavier, more bitter, chocolate-and-nut flavour. The remaining 5 per cent is arabica, grown almost entirely around Đà Lạt at higher altitudes, and it is the bean that the third-wave roasters work with most.

Classic Vietnamese coffee

Cà phê sữa đá — coffee with condensed milk over ice. The defining Vietnamese drink. Brewed in a phin (a small metal drip filter) over a glass already holding two centimetres of condensed milk; stirred together and poured over ice in a second glass. Around 20,000 to 35,000 VND at a pavement café.

Cà phê đen — black coffee, hot (đen nóng) or iced (đen đá), often with a touch of sugar.

Cà phê sữa nóng — hot version of the condensed-milk drink, common in northern winters.

Bạc xỉu — "white drop", a southern milky version with more condensed milk and less coffee. The starter drink.

The phin

The phin is the small metal cup with perforated base that sits on top of your glass. The grind is medium-coarse; the press disc goes on top of the grounds; hot (not boiling) water is poured in. The drip takes four to six minutes. A good phin coffee should not need topping up with hot water — if it stops dripping early, the grind is too fine or the press is too tight.

The third wave

In the last decade Vietnam's specialty-coffee scene has matured significantly. The leading roasters work with Vietnamese arabica and increasingly with carefully selected robusta:

Là Việt Coffee — Đà Lạt-based, the country's best-known specialty roaster. Single-origin beans from highland farms. The Đà Lạt flagship at 200 Nguyễn Công Trứ is worth a visit.

The Workshop — HCMC and Đà Nẵng. Clean modern espresso-bar style, with V60, syphon and espresso brewing.

43 Factory Coffee Roaster — Đà Nẵng, the architectural standout, and a serious roastery.

Shin Coffee — HCMC. Long-running specialty bar with a deep menu.

Tiệm Cà Phê Năm in Hanoi for old-school phin done well.

Beans to take home

Three brands dominate the Vietnamese-supermarket coffee shelf:

Trung Nguyên — the country's biggest brand. Their G7 instant is everywhere. The whole-bean Legend and Sáng Tạo ranges are decent everyday robusta blends.

K Coffee — owned by Phúc Sinh, a major exporter. Cleaner cup than Trung Nguyên.

Là Việt — specialty single-origin arabica; the bag to take home if you want serious coffee.

A 500g bag of any of these runs 150,000 to 350,000 VND in Vietnam, half what you'll pay at a Western specialty shop.

Egg coffee, coconut coffee, salt coffee

Hanoi gave the world cà phê trứng (egg coffee — see the separate article). HCMC's coconut coffee (cà phê dừa) blends condensed-milk coffee with frozen coconut cream. Huế's salt coffee (cà phê muối) finishes the drink with a pinch of salt and a layer of salty cream foam. All three are now sold everywhere.

How to order

Walk into any café, sit on a low stool, and say "một cà phê sữa đá" — "one iced milk coffee" — and you will get the standard drink. Tipping is not expected.

Related reading: Egg coffee, Hanoi food guide, HCMC food guide, Đà Nẵng food guide, Money and banking.