Episode notes
Vietnamese iced coffee began as a workaround. French colonists and locals wanted café au lait, but 19th century Vietnam had almost no dairy farming and fresh milk spoiled fast in the heat. Shelf stable sweetened condensed milk took its place, and ice answered the climate. To cut through all that sugar, brewers used dark roasted robusta, a lowland bean with nearly double arabica's caffeine, which the plant makes as a natural pesticide and which tastes intensely bitter.
Three rules define the drink: Vietnamese robusta, the slow metal phin filter with its tamping press, and condensed milk as the only creamer, so cà phê sữa đá in the south, cà phê nâu đá in the north, and black cà phê đen. From there the culture branched out. The Cantonese Vietnamese community of Chợ Lớn in 1950s Saigon created milky bạc xỉu, in 1946 Hanoi a bartender whipped egg yolks into foam when milk ran short, and modern cafes blend avocado, coconut, yogurt, and pandan into the cup.
- The phin's tamped disc slows the water so it extracts heavy oils into a brew closer to espresso than drip coffee.
- The name bạc xỉu is shortened from a Cantonese phrase meaning a cup of white milk with a little coffee.
- Avocado coffee comes from Đắk Lắk province, where avocado trees and coffee grow side by side.
- Salt coffee, invented in Huế in 2010, tops the drink with salted cream that dulls bitterness and boosts sweetness.
- Coconut coffee, a slush of condensed milk, coconut cream, and ice, became a hit in Hanoi.