French missionaries brought coffee to Vietnam in 1857. The first plantations came in 1888 in Tonkin. In the 1920s the French opened coffee zones in the Central Highlands, mainly in Đắk Lắk.
After the 1986 Đổi mới reforms allowed private enterprise again, coffee grew fast. Vietnam is now the second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, and robusta makes up about 97 percent of its crop.
Most Vietnamese coffee is brewed one cup at a time in a small metal filter called a phin, often set on the glass at the table. Poured over sweetened condensed milk and ice, it becomes cà phê sữa đá.
In Hanoi in 1946, during the war with France, milk was scarce. A bartender at the Metropole hotel, Nguyen Van Giang, whipped egg yolk into coffee in its place. His family's Café Giang still serves egg coffee in the Old Quarter.
Iced milk coffee · cà phê sữa đá (south) / cà phê nâu đá (north)
How it's made. Hot water drips through a phin onto dark-roast robusta. The coffee falls into a cup holding sweetened condensed milk, is stirred, then poured over ice.1,2
How it's served. Served in a tall glass of ice, often with the phin still dripping at the table. Condensed milk likely replaced fresh milk in colonial times because fresh milk was scarce and spoiled in the heat.
What time is taking away
What the record says
- French missionaries introduced coffee to Vietnam in 1857; the first plantations were set up in 1888 in Ninh Bình and Quảng Bình provinces.2
- In the 1920s the French opened coffee production zones in the Central Highlands, mainly in Đắk Lắk Province.2
- Robusta accounts for about 97 percent of Vietnam's coffee output.2
- Private enterprise was permitted again after the 1986 Đổi mới reforms, which led to a surge in coffee growing.2
- Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer, after Brazil.2
- Vietnam's first instant coffee plant, at Biên Hòa in 1969, had a capacity of 80 tons a year.2
- Egg coffee was created in Hanoi in 1946 by Nguyen Van Giang, who replaced scarce milk with whipped egg yolk.3,4
- Café Giang, the shop Giang opened, is in Hanoi's Old Quarter and is run by his son.4
Sources disagree on which of Giang's sons runs Café Giang (Vietcetera names Nguyen Van Do; other sites name another son), so the name is left out of the story. Atlas Obscura was blocked (403). Some web sources give arabica, others robusta, as the 1857 plant; not stated here. Salt coffee from Huế (cà phê muối) was found only on blogs with a disputed origin and was left out.
- Vietnamese iced coffee · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Coffee production in Vietnam · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- What is Vietnamese egg coffee? · Fortune, 2019 in the bibliography
- The History Of Egg Coffee · Vietcetera in the bibliography
