How does Vietnamese coffee brewing with a phin filter work?
Vietnamese drip coffee uses a small metal phin brewer and condensed milk to create a drink that is strong, sweet and unmistakable. Brewing it well comes down to three things: a medium grind, freshly ground beans, and few fine particles so the water passes evenly through the filter instead of stalling or turning muddy.
French Jesuit missionaries introduced coffee cultivation around 1860, and Vietnam now ranks as the world's second-largest exporter, growing mainly Robusta in regions such as Buon Ma Thuot. This French coffee culture legacy survives in street-side capheda, where condensed milk balances the bitter, heavy Robusta base in a slow drip.
Vietnamese drip coffee, with its distinctive Phin drip brewer and pairing with condensed milk, has become a highly recognizable way of drinking coffee in Southeast Asian coffee culture. This article begins with the historical origins, representative brands, and flavor characteristics of Vietnamese coffee, systematically introduces the materials, steps, and timing control needed to make an authentic Vietnamese iced coffee, and explains the key points for choosing coffee beans suitable for a Vietnamese phin—medium grind, freshly ground, and avoiding too many fine particles. The article also mentions related product recommendations from Front Street Coffee, suitable as a reference for coffee lovers who want to recreate the flavors of Vietnamese street coffee at home or in the office.
The Origin and Development of Vietnamese Coffee
Around 1860, French Jesuit missionaries introduced coffee cultivation to Vietnam. Over the nearly 150 years that followed, this land gradually developed its own coffee tradition and way of drinking it.
Today, from the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City all the way to the mountain town of Sapa on the border with central Vietnam, you can often see clusters of canvas awnings and sun umbrellas along the streets. Under the awnings are lounge chairs facing the road, hammocks, or even just a few small stools, with a simple aluminum drip brewer on a low table beside them. People sit, lie, or cross their legs, sipping capheda (iced coffee) one mouthful at a time—note that it is “sipping,” not gulping, nor sucking or licking—while commenting on the girls passing by or the motorcycle collision that just happened across the street. By the time one cup of coffee is finished, half a pack of cigarettes has been smoked, and a morning or most of an afternoon has been passed away just like that.
▲Vietnamese Iced Coffee
Although Vietnam began growing coffee during the French Indochina period, the coffee industry truly took off only in the last twenty years. Today Vietnam has become the world’s second-largest coffee exporter after Brazil, with its main variety being Robusta, used to make three-in-one instant coffee, accounting for about one quarter of the world’s output.
International companies such as Starbucks and Nestlé also regularly purchase considerable quantities of coffee beans from Vietnam. Vietnam’s best coffee-producing region is Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak Province in the central highlands of the west-central region. The local climate and soil conditions are very suitable for coffee cultivation, and it is listed as one of the world’s ten best coffee-producing regions.
Representative Brands of Vietnamese Coffee
When talking about representative brands of Vietnamese coffee, one cannot avoid Trung Nguyen and Highlands Coffee.
▲Trung Nguyen G7 Coffee
▲Highlands Coffee
In terms of flavor, Trung Nguyen coffee is strong and heavy, while Highlands Coffee is elegant and mellow; in terms of approach, Trung Nguyen coffee focuses on product development, while Highlands Coffee emphasizes store decor; in terms of customer base, Trung Nguyen coffee is the first choice of local Vietnamese people, while Highlands Coffee is more favored by tourists; in terms of social class, Trung Nguyen coffee has captured workers and farmers, while Highlands Coffee has won over the middle class; in terms of background, the boss of Trung Nguyen is a local talent, while the head of Highlands Coffee is a representative of overseas Vietnamese.
Characteristics of Vietnamese Coffee
No matter which kind of Vietnamese coffee it is, they all share a common trait: it has a kind of “resilience” different from European and Asian bourgeois coffee culture, and this resilience comes from its continuous process of “hybridization.”
From its first encounter with France, Vietnamese coffee has always been continuously “hybridizing,” and it still has not stopped today. For example, VINACAFE once launched a four-in-one instant coffee with Korean red ginseng flavor, and the market response was quite good. However, I have also heard that some Taiwanese taught Vietnamese people to add MSG to coffee. This Taiwanese-style fusion flavor is really hard to imagine, and at least it is indeed not good for health.
The charm of Vietnamese coffee also lies in the uniqueness of the brewing process. All you need is a simple drip brewer (Phin), and the coffee liquid falls drop by drop, like an hourglass keeping time. “In France, I only ever saw my grandmother drink coffee with this kind of drip brewer,” a French person once remarked. The advantage of the drip brewer is that it makes one cup at a time, the ratio and timing are easy to control, and it is convenient to carry, store, and clean; the disadvantage is that the holes are rather large, so it is inevitable that a small amount of coffee grounds will float in the cup.
Making an authentic Vietnamese iced coffee takes about seven minutes. The materials needed include: medium-ground coffee powder (to reduce excessive residue during dripping), a phin, condensed milk, ice cubes (they must be large enough and plentiful enough, because only the alternation of hot coffee first and cold afterward can release the ultimate flavor), two transparent glass cups, one tall and one short (to make it easy to watch the dripping process), and hot water at 96°C~100°C.
Learn to Make Vietnamese Drip Coffee in One Minute
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1. First pour an appropriate amount of condensed milk into the cup.
2. Place the base of the phin on the cup, take 20g of coffee powder and pour it into the brewer, and gently spread it evenly on the bottom layer.
3. Pour hot water into the phin and let it drip down slowly.
4. Let it sit for about three minutes. Once the coffee and condensed milk are stirred and blended, a cup of Vietnamese drip coffee is basically complete.
In particular, it must be emphasized that the coffee beans must be fresh and ground to order. Freshly ground coffee beans can be handled with a hand-crank grinder. Take the well-regarded “mailbox coffee grinder” as an example; the price is between RMB 100 and RMB 120, economical and practical. With such a simple structure, easy operation, convenient portability, and good taste, this brewing method is very suitable for office use. For a period of time, I relied on a Vietnamese phin plus a hand grinder to satisfy my coffee cravings during work. If you want to choose coffee beans suitable for a Vietnamese phin, you can check out the related recommendations from Front Street Coffee.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
