Vietnamese Coffee Culture

Order a coffee in Vietnam and you will wait. A small metal filter, the phin, sits on top of your glass, and the coffee comes through a drop at a time. Nobody minds. The waiting is part of it, and so is the stool, the view of the street and the conversation that fills the gap.

From French import to national habit

Coffee arrived with French missionaries and colonists in the nineteenth century and took root in the cool, red soils of the Central Highlands. Today Vietnam is one of the largest coffee producers in the world, and most of what it grows is robusta: stronger, more bitter and higher in caffeine than arabica.

That bold flavour explains the signature drink. Ca phe sua da is dark robusta dripped over sweetened condensed milk, stirred and poured over ice. Condensed milk was used because fresh milk was hard to keep in the heat, and the pairing stuck. Without milk, it is ca phe den da: black, iced and strong enough to keep you going through a Saigon afternoon.

A different cup in every city

Hanoi has egg coffee, a thick sweet cream of whipped yolk over black coffee, served in old houses up narrow staircases. Hue is known for salt coffee, where a salted cream softens the bitterness. Coconut coffee, blended with coconut milk and ice, has become a favourite across the country. In Saigon, the classic is still iced milk coffee, drunk at pavement cafes from early morning.

Alongside the old ways, a newer scene has grown in the big cities, with specialty roasters, arabica from the highlands around Da Lat and baristas who treat Vietnamese beans with the care once kept for imports. The phin has not gone anywhere, though.

The point is to stay

The coffee shop is where Vietnam meets friends, does business, reads the news and watches the world go past. Chairs face the street rather than each other. A single glass can last an hour, often refilled with free iced tea. For a visitor, there are few better ways to understand the rhythm of a city than to order one, sit low and do nothing much at all.