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Iced · Medium · 12 minutes

Cà phê muối

Vietnamese salted coffee
Cà phê muối puts a layer of salted, whipped cream on top of sweet phin coffee. The salt does not make it taste salty. It takes the sharp edge off the bitter robusta and makes the sweetened condensed milk taste rounder. You do not stir it, so every sip goes through the cream to the coffee.
  • 20 g
    Coffee
  • 80 ml
    Water
  • 4:00
    Drip
Next time, this recipe opens like this.

Ingredients

  • Vietnamese ground coffee
    A dark-roast robusta, or a blend of robusta and arabica. Ground for a phin: a little coarser than for espresso.
    20 g
  • Hot water
    Just off the boil, around 92 to 96 °C. Boiling water scorches robusta and makes the coffee bitter.
    80 ml
  • Sweetened condensed milk
    The sugar and the milk in one. Evaporated milk is not a substitute, because it is not sweetened.
    20 ml
  • Whipping cream
    Cream with at least 30% fat, or it will not hold air when you whisk it.
    50 ml
  • Fine sea salt
    A pinch. Salt brings out the sweetness, but it should not taste salty.
    0.5 g
  • Ice cubes (optional)
    Fill the glass generously. Vietnamese iced coffee is served properly cold.
    6

Equipment

Steps

  • Whisk the salted cream

    50 ml
    Whisk the cream with half the sweetened condensed milk and a pinch of salt until it thickens but still pours. Stop while it still runs slowly off the whisk. Whipped stiff, it sits on the coffee like a lid and you cannot drink through it.
    Tip
    Taste it. It should taste sweet, with just a hint of salt.

  • Add the rest of the condensed milk

    10 ml
    Spoon the rest of the condensed milk into your glass. It goes in first, so the hot coffee drips straight onto it.

  • Add the coffee

    20 g
    Set the phin on the glass and add the ground coffee to the chamber. Give it a gentle shake so the coffee sits level.

  • Place the filter plate

    Lay the filter plate on the coffee and press down lightly.

  • Wet the grounds

    20 ml
    Pour just enough hot water to cover the coffee. The water should be just off the boil, around 92 to 96 °C.

  • Let it bloom

    ± 30 s
    Wait while the coffee swells and releases its gas.

  • Fill the phin

    60 ml
    Top up with the rest of the hot water and put the lid on.

  • Let it drip

    ± 4 min
    Now wait. A well-packed phin drips steadily, about one drop a second.

  • Stir the milk in

    Lift the phin off and stir until the condensed milk has dissolved. Do this before the cream goes on. After that, you do not stir again.

  • Add the ice

    6 cubes
    Add ice to the glass, but leave room at the top for the cream.

  • Add the salted cream

    Spoon the salted cream onto the coffee so it forms its own layer. If it starts to sink, pour it over the back of a spoon.

  • Serve it unstirred

    Bring it to the table without stirring. The first sips are mostly cream, the last mostly coffee. In between you get both, and that is the point of the drink.
    Tip
    Sprinkle a tiny pinch of sea salt on the cream. It is the same salt that is already whisked into it, but now you can see it, and the first sip tells you what you are drinking.

Flavour

Background

Where it comes from

Salted coffee is said to have started at a small café in Huế in the 2010s, which makes it very young next to Vietnam's other coffees. It spread through Vietnamese social media rather than tradition, and you can now get it everywhere from Huế to Hanoi. How salty and how thick the cream is varies a lot by region.
Every café, family and region in Vietnam makes coffee a little differently. Treat these amounts as a good starting point, not a rule.
These amounts are new, and we are still fine-tuning them.

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