Vietnamese Iced Coffee

An intensely flavorful coffee drink

Angela and I have been making our own Vietnamese coffee for almost 20 years. When we lived in Albuquerque, there were several great Vietnamese restaurants where we fell in love with this intense beverage. We lamented the fact that we could only get Vietnamese coffee at the restaurants. Fortunately there was also a great little import store that sold little Vietnamese drip coffee makers (called a phin), which sit atop a glass like tin caps. For only a couple of bucks, we bought a few of the units and began experimenting with Vietnamese iced coffee.

We soon realized that in order to get the flavor we had learned to love, we had to use a Vietnamese brand of coffee. But when we moved to Lake Tahoe and there were no Asian food stores around, we went without—that is until we learned that chicory was the flavor that distinguished the Vietnamese brands from other coffees we had tried. Problem solved! Café du Monde coffee is available in most grocery stores in the US, and since then we’ve rarely had to go without. We still make Vietnamese iced coffee as a desert after a Vietnamese or Thai meal, we also brew it as an afternoon “pick-me-up” on days when we expect to stay up late.

Ingredients:

· 2 T. Vietnamese (medium) ground coffee, such as Trung Nguyen (or another coffee/chicory blend such as the iconic Café du Monde from New Orleans)

· 2 T. Sweetened condensed milk

· 2/3 c. boiling water

· Ice

Directions:

1. Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a (preferably) tall, narrow glass.

2. Make the coffee using a Vietnamese drip coffee maker (phin):

a. Unscrew the disc filter from the phin and add coffee.

b. Screw down disc filter until it begins to compress the coffee.

c. Slowly add boiling water to the phin until it is full to the top.

d. This will make about ½ c. very strong coffee, which should take about 4 minutes to slowly drip.

e. Mix coffee and sweetened condensed milk, and then either chill before mixing with ice, or add ice immediately and swirl to chill.

Alternate (less preferable) method of making the coffee with paper coffee filters:

a. Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan.

b. Add coffee and steep for 4 min.

c. Run the water and grounds through a paper filter into the glass with the sweetened condensed milk.

d. Mix coffee and sweetened condensed milk, and then either chill before mixing with ice, or add ice immediately and swirl to chill.