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Hot · Advanced · 14 minutes

Cà phê trứng

Hanoi egg coffee
For cà phê trứng you whisk an egg yolk with sweetened condensed milk into a pale, thick, warm foam. That foam goes on top of a small, very strong coffee. It tastes like tiramisu and is as thick as custard: sweet and rich on top, dark and bitter underneath. Do not stir them together. Try to get both in the same sip.
  • 20 g
    Coffee
  • 60 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.
    60 ml
  • Egg yolk
    Use a very fresh egg. The yolk stays raw, so use a pasteurised egg if you can, and skip this recipe if you are pregnant or making it for young children.
    1
  • Sweetened condensed milk
    The sugar and the milk in one. Evaporated milk is not a substitute, because it is not sweetened.
    25 ml

Equipment

Steps

  • Add the coffee

    20 g
    Put the ground coffee into the phin and shake it level. The brew is small and strong on purpose. A longer, weaker coffee would get lost under the sweet foam.

  • Place the filter plate

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

  • Wet the grounds

    15 ml
    Pour just enough hot water to cover the coffee.

  • Let it bloom

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

  • Fill the phin

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

  • Let it drip

    ± 4 min
    Wait while the coffee drips into the glass. Start the timer and go straight on to the next step to whisk the foam. That way the foam is fresh when the coffee is ready.

  • Whisk the foam

    25 ml
    Whisk the yolk and sweetened condensed milk in a small bowl until the foam is pale, thick and about three times the volume. This is the most important part of the recipe. With a milk frother it takes about two minutes, with a whisk longer. When you lift the whisk, the foam should hold a soft peak that slowly sinks back.
    Tip
    Stand the bowl in warm water while you whisk. Warm foam stays on top of hot coffee. Cold foam sinks straight through it.

  • Spoon the foam on top

    Gently spoon the foam onto the coffee so it settles as a layer. Do not stir. Coffee and foam should stay separate until you drink.

  • Serve it hot

    Drink it while the foam is still warm, ideally with the glass standing in a bowl of hot water. A teaspoon is normal: you eat the top half more than you drink it.
    Tip
    The powder you see in photos is usually cocoa, sometimes finely ground coffee. Sift a pinch over the top. Enough to see, not enough to taste.

Flavour

Background

Where it comes from

Egg coffee was invented at the Metropole hotel in Hanoi in the 1940s. Fresh milk was scarce, so a bartender used egg yolks instead. His family still runs Café Giảng in the old quarter, where it comes in a small glass standing in a bowl of hot water. It is still a Hanoi drink first and foremost.
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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