3 Types Of Vietnamese Coffee You Indulge In When Visiting Vietnam

I have heard that Vietnam is great for food. I love Vietnamese food but before I hit the shores of Vietnam I knew almost nothing about Vietnamese coffee. In fact, there is so much to tell about just that one little beverage that I decided to dedicate an entire post to it.

Why? Because the Vietnamese are really innovative! They combine the strangest of ingredients to give you results that you wouldn’t believe. Before we start out with the specialties, let us look at Vietnamese coffee as a whole.

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Brewing Vietnamese Coffee

Everything is unique! Even the coffee!

The Vietnamese coffee revolves around the coarse ground dark coffee beans that the Vietnamese call their own. This powdered version of coffee is then placed in a cup with a filter system. A cup on top of a cup for lack of a better description… Hot water is then poured at the top and the coffee begins to drip into the bottom cup.

This preparation is the base for all the different kinds of Vietnamese coffee preparations that you see across the country. Traditionally, this coffee is sweetened with condensed milk. You can however ask for milk and sugar but I think it tastes best the original way.

That being said it took a while for me to get used to the Vietnamese version of coffee because it usually quite strong. Once you taste it enough of times the flavor grows on you!

Types Of Vietnamese Coffee

At first I was confused. Coffee is coffee right? Well apparently that isn’t true. The variations in the Vietnamese coffee come from the various additions that are used in the preparation. The base of the coffee is always the same shot of filtered coffee. Let’s take a look at some of the unique drinks that I have had along the way.

1. Egg Coffee

I have an egg.. I have coffee… Egg Coffee!

Egg coffee! When I said that I wanted to taste it Shawn wrinkled his nose. The egg coffee is a specialty that is limited to Hanoi. I should know because I spent a great deal of time hunting it in the south. While most of us would assume that the white of the egg is used to make the coffee, we couldn’t be further from the truth.

The base is a strong shot of Vietnamese coffee. It is then topped off with a whisked mixture of egg yolk, coffee and sugar. Now the description of how it is made may scare a few people away but hold on a second, let me describe how it tastes.

How? Like a tiramisu! The hint of the Vietnamese coffee that you sip along with the top froth only accentuates the taste!

2. Yogurt Coffee

Yogurt coffee anyone?

Yogurt coffee was definitely not something that I wanted to taste. A friend of mine however said that it was really good and I decided to try it despite my better judgment. Suffice to say that I am happy that I did.

This particular coffee like all the others used the Vietnamese coffee as a base but it was blended into the yogurt. How did it taste? Like a milkshake! Very refreshing! Where did we try this? In Ninh Binh!

3. Iced Milk Coffee

One of the best coffees in Ho Chi Minh!

Speaking of refreshing drinks, there is no Vietnamese coffee as refreshing as the iced milk coffee of Ho Chi Minh. If you have been to Ho Chi Ming, you will know that there are cafes everywhere. Small shops, big shops, street vendors… They all have coffee and the coffee everywhere is mind blowing.

The iced milk coffee is nothing but milk coffee that is poured over ice. The catch? It is a social drink. You have to sip it slowly and enjoy it as the ice melts. The problem was that we could never be patient so we always landed up ordering coffee after coffee!

Truth be told, I never thought I would land up writing about Vietnamese coffee. I am a believer of sharing the good things that I stumble across. If that means talking about coffee so be it!

Now if you have spent even a single day in Vietnam, you will know exactly why! So tell me… Which of the above versions of coffee would you try during your next visit to Vietnam?