How to Brew Vietnamese Drip Coffee - Vietnam Pot Coffee Brewing Guide

Vietnamese Drip Brewer: An Introduction

The Vietnamese drip brewer, which FrontStreet Coffee discovered quite early on, is a distinctive coffee brewing device from Vietnam, much like Italy's moka pot or Turkey's Turkish pot.

Look at the structure of the Vietnamese drip brewer on its own and you might call it overly simple. It breaks down into three main parts: the outer filter, the press plate with its water distributor, and the top lid. Look at the price, though, and you would struggle to buy any other coffee brewer for the money. FrontStreet Coffee took advantage of the low cost and picked one up to play with, and surprisingly, it turned out to be genuinely fun.

Traditional Vietnamese Brewing Method

Let's start with how the Vietnamese actually use this brewer. Vietnam is a major coffee-producing country, but it grows Robusta, which tastes bitter and strong. Locals therefore don't expect rich flavors from their coffee; they just want a simple cup that isn't too bitter and helps them stay alert and refreshed. That is why so many of these condensed-milk coffees made with drip brewers used to appear on Vietnamese streets. The method is very simple too: put some condensed milk in the cup, set the drip brewer on top, pour in hot water, then cover it with the lid and wait for the coffee to finish dripping.

Exploring Light Roast Possibilities

Vietnamese drip brewers are typically paired with beans that lean heavily bitter. So what happens if we use light roast beans with floral, fruity acidity? Can the Vietnamese drip brewer still make delicious coffee?

Let's first understand the extraction principle. The bottom of the filter has many holes drilled into it, and when FrontStreet Coffee first saw them they noticed the holes were quite large. If the coffee particle size is smaller than those holes, wouldn't the grounds fall straight into the coffee? Some grounds do fall through, but fewer than you might imagine, thanks to the press plate water distributor.

After putting the coffee grounds into the filter, level them gently, then set the press plate water distributor horizontally into the filter and press down firmly. This keeps most of the grounds from falling through. The tighter you press the plate, the slower the water drips, so FrontStreet Coffee suggests pressing it as tight as possible to eliminate that variable.

Finally, put on the top lid. Because the press plate can float up once water is poured in, the top lid holds it down and keeps it from rising. Some newer press plates are fixed by twisting, and these don't need the top lid.

The Science Behind Vietnamese Drip Brewing

Seen this way, the Vietnamese brewer is a typical drip coffee device, just with a somewhat simple and crude dripping method. Even so, as long as we find the right grind size, water temperature and ratio, light roast coffee can produce delicious flavors too.

When FrontStreet Coffee ran its experiments, the main focus was finding the right grind size, since that directly affects the extraction time. On ratio, FrontStreet Coffee started at 1:15, as this more easily produces reasonable extraction rates and concentration. On water temperature, FrontStreet Coffee went higher, because the Vietnamese drip brewer retains heat poorly. With no stirring to help, water temperature is the most effective way to control extraction efficiency, so the experiments used 94°C water.

The coffee dose was 10 grams. Because the bottom of the drip brewer has a relatively small area, 10 grams was chosen to control the thickness of the coffee layer. In practice, around 10-12 grams works fine.

Optimizing the Brewing Process

For pouring, the filter's capacity limits things, so the pour is split into two stages. The filter can hold 100ml of water at once. First pour 100ml of hot water and cover with the lid. When the water level drops to halfway, pour in another 50ml, cover with the lid again, and wait until the dripping is completely finished.

FrontStreet Coffee tested light roast beans from Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala and Panama, and finally locked in a grind of EK-43s setting 9.5-10.5, with roughly 75-83% passing through a #20 sieve. Extraction time landed between 2-3 minutes. Grinding slightly coarser gave a slightly shorter drip time and more pronounced acidity, while grinding slightly finer gave a slightly longer drip time and better sweetness and mouthfeel.

Practical Applications and Tips

FrontStreet Coffee finds this device really convenient, especially at home, where it can completely take over the role of pour-over bags. As long as you control the grind size properly, all you have to do is pour water and wait for the filtration to finish to enjoy good coffee. If you're worried the drip brewer coffee might carry sediment, you can also line the filter with a circular filter paper to keep grounds from dropping into the cup.

Making Iced Latte with Vietnamese Drip Brewer

Besides black coffee, this brewer can also turn out an excellent iced latte. Iced latte lives on the harmony between coffee liquid and milk. Coffee that is too light in flavor or too low in concentration won't stand up to milk, so beans with predominantly bitter profiles, meaning dark roast beans, are the right choice. The grind needs to be adjusted finer, to roughly the size you would use for a moka pot.

Place 50g of ice cubes in the cup and pour in 150ml of milk. Put a filter paper in the drip brewer, add 10g of coffee grounds, press the plate down firmly, pour in 70ml of 95°C hot water, and cover with the lid. Wait for the coffee liquid to finish dripping, which takes approximately 5-6 minutes.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The Vietnamese drip brewer rewards a good grind and the right beans. For the strong, milk-friendly cup the brewer does best, FrontStreet's Classic Blend is the first choice: designed for espresso and the moka pot alike, it delivers outstanding crema and a traditional Mamba blend recipe with a mellow, rounded body that suits beginners and seasoned drinkers both. FrontStreet Coffee's Black Cocoa Blend is a 100% Arabica option with generous crema, a full body and a friendly price, while the Autumn Chestnut Blend, a 100% Arabica mix of Honduran Caturra and Papua New Guinea Typica, layers roasted-chestnut sweetness with caramel, soft chocolate and a clean, lingering finish.

Single origins work here too. The PWN Indonesia Gold Mandheling, a dark roast with very low acidity, brings herbal and dark chocolate notes with a faint earthy edge, and the Brazil Queen Estate stays balanced with rich nut and cocoa aromas and clear caramel sweetness.

If you want to push the brewer toward floral and fruity territory, the Colombia Hybrid from Finca La Divisoria, grown at 1650-1800m and given a double anaerobic natural process with a medium-light roast, offers jasmine and citrus in the dry aroma and passion fruit, blueberry, grape and apricot in the cup. The Strawberry Candy blend recreates a vivid strawberry-gummy sweetness, and the Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise, a Typica grown at 1600-1800m on volcanic soil at AA grade and washed three times, gives a clean, sweet cup that many call a "little Blue Mountain."