A wonderful coffee culture

A recent, first-time visit to Vietnam opened my eyes to a vibrant coffee culture in the country that has become the second-biggest coffee exporter in the world. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, it seems as if there is a coffee shop every 20 metres on every street. Large local chain outlets or the ubiquitous Starbucks appear regularly, too, offering their overpriced and exotic variations. But it is the thousands of smaller, independent coffee outlets that are everywhere, inviting locals to chill and sip while squatting on tiny plastic kiddie chairs on the pavements.

Hugely popular is Vietnamese iced coffee, cà phê sūa dá, which requires no rocket-science barista. It’s made with a compact metal filter (a phin, sold for a dollar at any street market) that sits snugly over the rim of a glass. Hot water is poured over the grounds in the phin, and the coffee drips into the glass, which is lined with a shallow layer of sweet condensed milk (there’s not much fresh dairy in Vietnam). You stir the brew, then pour it into a second glass containing ice cubes, stir again and you’re left with a delicious, non-bitter drink – refreshing and invigorating in the warm climate.

In Hanoi, there’s cà phê trung (egg coffee). The egg yolk of a chicken is whipped into the coffee (with possible additions of condensed milk, butter and even cheese), and you can drink or eat it with a spoon, hot or cold. The warm version sits with the cup in a small dish of hot water to keep the temperature up, and you choose how much you wish to stir the whipped yolk into the coffee. It’s like eating dessert, and certainly a different experience for an amateur like me. And then there’s coconut coffee…