How to Drink Vietnamese Drip Coffee? Can You Drink Drip Coffee Directly?

Drip Coffee Extraction

The basic principle of drip brewing is simple: hot water poured over ground coffee passes through once and drips out below. With paper filters, the coffee's colloids are filtered out too, leaving a clear, clean cup.

Drip coffee extraction machines or methods:

• Cold drip
• Pour-over / drip cone
• Electric coffee maker / American drip machine

Flavor profile:

Drip coffee has a clean, bright color with no off-flavors and a relatively refreshing taste, but a thinner body. It suits people who drink their coffee black.

High-Pressure Extraction

High-pressure brewing is better known as espresso. An espresso machine forces hot water through the coffee under high pressure, extracting a thick, concentrated liquid.

High-pressure extraction machines:

• Moka pot
• Espresso machine

Flavor profile:

Espresso plus milk makes the latte everyone knows. Foam the milk and you can pour latte art; the whole family of Italian variations - cappuccino, caramel macchiato and more - starts here.

Immersion Brewing

Immersion brewing is like drip brewing with one extra step: the grounds soak in the water. As you might guess, the flavor comes out richer than drip.

Immersion brewing machines:

• Siphon
• Belgian coffee maker
• French press

Flavor profile:

Generally richer than drip brewing, though the exact result depends on the device.

Vietnamese Drip Coffee Pot

Coffee brewed in an aluminum Vietnamese pot tastes sweeter (much like an aluminum moka pot), but the pot is flimsy and deforms easily.

Stainless steel versions are sturdy, but the coffee lacks some of that sweet fragrance compared with aluminum.

On the stainless steel model, the main difference between old and new is whether the pressure plate can be fixed in place: a threaded rod protrudes from the center of the pot, and you set the plate on it and twist a few turns to lock it down.

I personally enjoy using new Vietnamese pots for specialty beans. Like a French press, they preserve the coffee's full body completely - with the same drawback: there will always be some grounds in the cup.

Unlike a French press, a Vietnamese pot can take filter paper. If you hate grounds, buy round siphon filter papers with a hole in the middle. But paper thins the body - and if that's what you want, you might as well brew pour-over.

Vietnamese pots extract for a long time, so don't grind too fine. For the Small Flying Eagle grinder, a setting of 3-4 is recommended (commercial Vietnamese coffee powder is about that coarse). Ground too fine, the coffee over-extracts and turns bitter and astringent.

The hardest part of a new Vietnamese pot is the pressure plate. Do not lock it down completely. Turn it until you feel it lightly pressing the grounds - then back it off a few turns to leave room for the grounds to expand during brewing.

This is the key to good coffee, and there are two classic failure modes:

1. Too little space: the expanding grounds fill the gap, block the filter holes, drag out the extraction, or stop the flow entirely - leaving a bitter, astringent cup.

2. Too much space: the drip runs too fast, extraction is insufficient, and the coffee is weak and thin.

Honestly, it takes experience to get right (anywhere from 2 to 5 backed-off turns can work), and you cannot see the expansion happening. But when you nail it, the flavor is exceptional.

If you are trying a Vietnamese pot for the first time, start with an old-style one to practice on: the pressure plate simply rests on the grounds, and as they expand they push it up naturally - so failure mode #1 can't happen, and it is much easier to control.

Waiting for the pot to finish its slow drip is wonderfully leisurely. For the impatient, pour-over remains the better choice...

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If you want the simplest brewer there is, the French press is hard to beat - it works like making tea: add coffee, add hot water, stir, press, pour. But the simpler the tool, the more the details matter.

Why Immersion Tastes Fuller

The French press is a full-immersion brewer with a metal mesh filter. Because the water and grounds steep together, the finished coffee keeps more of its oils - a heavier, fuller-bodied cup. If you dislike sediment and fines, though, it may not be for you.

Grind, Ratio, and Time

FrontStreet Coffee suggests a coarse granulated-sugar grind - about setting 10.5 on an EK43s or 26 clicks on a hand grinder - closer to small pebbles than sand. Too fine, and fines slip through the mesh and leave a muddy cup. Use a 1:15 ratio (15g of coffee to 225g of water) for a strength around 1.1-1.2%, water just off the boil rested 2-3 minutes (about 90°C, one or two degrees warmer than pour-over since nothing stirs during steeping), and a 4-minute steep before pressing slowly and pouring gently - start there and adjust to taste.

Beans for the Press

Because immersion rewards body and sweetness, medium and darker roasts fit best. For a fragrant cup, try the Strawberry Candy Geisha blend - Costa Rica honey process plus Panama washed Geisha - which steeps into rose, citrus, grape, and dried blueberry aromas. For a low-acid, oil-rich black coffee, the PWN Golden Mandheling, hand-sorted three times and machine-sorted once, delivers spice, caramel, cedar, and dark chocolate with a thick, full body.