How to Make Vietnamese Iced Coffee_Which Vietnamese Coffee Brand is Best_Vietnamese Coffee Origin Story

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The Essence of Vietnamese Coffee Culture

It is said that the most classic "hot coffee" comes from Central and South America, while the most flavorful "iced coffee" can be found in Vietnam. Having never been to Central and South America, I dare not make claims about that, but having had the opportunity to travel to Vietnam, I once experienced drip coffee at a café called Red River Valley. A glass of Vietnamese iced coffee truly satisfied the coffee aroma and relieved the summer heat. In Vietnam, where it's summer year-round, a glass of iced coffee not only cools and quenches thirst but also refreshes the mind.

Origins of Vietnamese Coffee

Vietnamese coffee was introduced to Vietnam around 1860 by French Jesuit missionaries. In its nearly 150-year history, Vietnam has gradually developed its unique coffee culture. Today, from Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in the south, to the mountain town of Sapa near the Vietnam-China border, strolling through the streets, you can often see canvas canopies or umbrellas clustered together. Underneath are reclining chairs, hammocks, or even small stools facing the road, with simple aluminum drip filters on low tables beside them. People sit, lie down, or prop up their feet, sipping (note: not drinking, not swallowing, not sucking or licking—it must be sipping) capheda (iced coffee) while pointing out passing girls or motorcycle accidents across the street. When the coffee is finished and half a pack of cigarettes is smoked away, a morning or two-thirds of an afternoon has passed.

Although Vietnam began growing coffee as early as the French Indochina period, the coffee industry only experienced rapid development in the recent 20 years. Currently, following Brazil, Vietnam has become the world's second-largest coffee exporter, primarily producing Robusta coffee used for three-in-one instant coffee, with production accounting for nearly 1/4 of the global total. Companies like Starbucks and Nestlé also regularly purchase considerable quantities of coffee beans from Vietnam. The best coffee-producing region in Vietnam is Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak province in the central highlands, where the local climate and soil quality are exceptionally suitable for growing Vietnamese coffee beans, making it one of the world's top ten best coffee-producing regions.

The representative products of Vietnamese coffee are TRUNG NGUYEN and HIGHLANDS. If Trung Nguyen's flavor is rich and intense, then Highlands Coffee is elegant and mellow; if Trung Nguyen emphasizes product development, then Highlands Coffee focuses on store decor; if Trung Nguyen is the first choice for Vietnamese people, then Highlands Coffee is favored by tourists; if Trung Nguyen captures the working class, then Highlands Coffee commands the middle class; if Trung Nguyen's owner is local talent, then Highlands Coffee's leader represents overseas Vietnamese.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu: The Vietnamese Coffee King Who Abandoned Medicine for Business

Trung Nguyen's history is not long. Its founder and current general manager, Dang Le Nguyen Vu, was originally a medical school student. In 1996, at the age of 25, seeing coffee as Vietnam's most promising industry, he and three friends founded Trung Nguyen in Buon Ma Thuot, a coffee-producing region in central Vietnam. Besides hoping to expand Vietnamese coffee worldwide, he also aimed to improve the lives of local ethnic minorities (the ethnic group's name is Trung Nguyen). Over the past decade, with the right conditions of timing, location, and people working together, Trung Nguyen has successfully leaped onto the international stage. (For feature stories, see [Dang Le Nguyen Vu: The Vietnamese Coffee King Who Abandoned Medicine for Business]).

Since 2000, Trung Nguyen has won the Vietnam Best Product Award for seven consecutive years. Currently, Trung Nguyen has 400 chain stores and 1,000 franchise stores in Vietnam, and their coffee is sold to more than 40 countries worldwide, including the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Japan, Singapore, China, Cambodia, and Thailand. Additionally, he provides financial assistance to low-income families, martyrs' families, struggling students, young entrepreneurs, and even dioxin victims in Vietnam. From being a medical school "deserter" to these charitable acts today, perhaps this is another manifestation of Dang Le Nguyen Vu's commitment to healing the world.

Trung Nguyen does not use vacuum packaging because the vacuum packaging process causes coffee to lose some of its aroma. Among their premium products is the so-called "Weasel Coffee" called CAPHE CHON, also known as Legendee or Coffee Weasel. It is said that early Vietnamese weasels enjoyed picking and eating fully ripe coffee beans. Since weasels cannot digest coffee beans themselves, they can only excrete them by secreting special digestive enzymes. The next day, coffee workers would search for complete coffee beans in the weasel droppings, wash and dry them, then roast them with cream to finally produce a coffee with chocolate-like flavor. Due to its special "achievement" process and rare production, it is expensive and, along with Indonesia's Kopi Luwak (civet coffee), is considered one of the world's finest coffees.

Today, Trung Nguyen has specially invited German experts for technical guidance, using special formulas to simulate the digestive enzymes within weasels, creating the lower-caffeine Legendee Coffee Weasel, allowing people to brew the world's best iced coffee without going through weasel droppings, enjoying endless aftertaste.

Among other special Trung Nguyen coffees is Premium Culi from Trung Nguyen No. 4, which blends chocolate, tamarind, and other aromas, suitable for those with heavy tastes; Trung Nguyen No. 9 Passiona is the latest low-caffeine product, priced almost the same as Legendee but personally considered more suitable for women, especially young girls; the boxed House Blend is Trung Nguyen's most accessible entry-level coffee; there is also G7 (reportedly hoping to enter the major seven developing country markets, including China) three-in-one instant coffee, but as for coffee aroma, I generally don't support instant coffee.

Highlands Coffee: Vietnam's Starbucks

Unlike the localized Trung Nguyen, Highlands Coffee takes an international route, earning it the title "Vietnam's Starbucks": from a distance, you can see its eye-catching logo, outdoor seats filled with different languages, waitstaff uniformly dressed in red and black uniforms, deliberately created lantern-style fiber optics paired with lazy sofas, perfect for people to nestle all day with Free WiFi... attracting foreign tourists, business people, and modern Saigon ladies, while also satisfying the emerging group in Vietnam's economic development—the middle class.

David Thai, founder of Highlands Coffee, was born in South Vietnam in 1972. At age 6, he immigrated to Seattle. Immersed in Starbucks' hometown environment, he decided to return to Vietnam to start his own business at age 24. In 1996, he went to Hanoi to study Vietnamese for a year, during which he also visited Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and other Asian countries for research. Two years later, he founded Highlands Coffee, under the Vietnam-Thailand International Joint Stock Company, initially promoting products in major Vietnamese hotels and supermarkets. In 2002, the first Highlands Coffee café opened opposite the Red Church in Ho Chi Minh City, offering cinnamon coffee most familiar to foreign tourists. Its Espresso Arabica Supreme strictly selects 100% Arabica beans, representing top-tier flavor. Besides coffee, Highlands Coffee also provides various simple meals and tea drinks, achieving brilliant performance in its first year. Currently, Highlands Coffee has dozens of branches throughout Vietnam, and it is the coffee brand consistently trusted by most five-star hotels, fine Western restaurants, and 3/4 of tourists.

The Unique Character of Vietnamese Coffee

Regardless of the type of Vietnamese coffee, they all share a characteristic—a "resilience" different from Eurasian bourgeois coffee culture, and this resilience comes from its continuous "mixed heritage." From the beginning with France, Vietnamese coffee has continuously undergone "mixed heritage," and even now it continues to mix. For example, VINACAFE introduced a Korean red ginseng-flavored four-in-one instant coffee that was well-received. However, I've also heard that Taiwanese people taught Vietnamese people to add MSG to coffee—this Taiwanese mixed heritage flavor is somewhat hard to imagine, and at least it's truly not good for health.

The charm of Vietnamese coffee also lies in its special brewing process, requiring only a simple drip filter (Phin), which drips like an hourglass timing. "In France, I've only seen my grandmother use this kind of drip filter to drink coffee," says a French person speaking from experience. The advantage of the drip filter is making one cup at a time, with easy control of ratio and time, and it's portable, easy to store, and convenient to clean; the disadvantage is the large sieve holes, which inevitably leave tiny coffee grounds floating in it.

Brewing Authentic Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Making a glass of authentic Vietnamese iced coffee takes seven minutes. The required materials are: medium-grind coffee powder (to avoid too much residue during dripping), drip filter, sweetened condensed milk, ice cubes (must be large and plentiful, as coffee only releases its ultimate flavor through the alternating effect of hot then cold), one tall and one short transparent glass (to enjoy the pleasure of watching the drip), and hot water at 96°C~100°C.

The brewing method is as follows:

1. First, pour 3-4 small teaspoons of sweetened condensed milk into the short glass, then place the drip filter above this glass, and add 3 small teaspoons of coffee powder (1/6 of the filter height). Gently shake the filter to distribute the coffee powder evenly.

2. Gently lower the filter press and inject a small amount of hot water (friends familiar with coffee know this is called "blooming"). Wait about 30 seconds for the coffee powder to fully absorb water and expand. At this point, the coffee has begun to drip.

3. Press the filter down firmly (not too tight or too loose) and inject hot water to 5/6 full, then cover with the lid. Ideally, the coffee should finish dripping in five to six minutes at a rate of 65 drops per minute. This process is crucial—if too fast or too slow, it indicates problems with water-to-powder ratio, filter pressure, or water temperature, potentially resulting in coffee that's too weak, bitter, or cools prematurely.

4. Fill the tall transparent glass with ice cubes, then turn the drip filter lid upside down to hold the filter (so coffee won't drip everywhere), stir the coffee and sweetened condensed milk in the short glass thoroughly, then pour into the large glass, and wait another 30 seconds for the coffee, sweetened condensed milk, and ice to fully blend before enjoying.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small storefront but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online shop services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473