How to Make Authentic Vietnamese Drip Coffee at Home | What Coffee Beans to Use for Vietnamese Drip Coffee?

Vietnam Drip Filter: The Traditional Coffee Maker

Most regions have their unique coffee pots. While they may not have been invented locally, they have certainly been popularized there! For example, Ethiopia's ceramic coffee pot; the Turkish pot that continuously produces coffee liquid; the Italian Moka pot we just discussed in the previous article, and then there's the protagonist of this article—the Vietnam Drip Filter.

The Vietnam Drip Filter (also known as Vietnam drip/drip filter pot) is an essential tool for making Vietnamese condensed milk coffee. It mainly consists of three parts: the pot body that holds coffee grounds and hot water, a press plate that compresses the coffee grounds, and a lid that can serve as a base.

The Origin of Vietnam Drip Filter

The exact origin of the Vietnam Drip Filter cannot be precisely traced. On the internet, the widely circulated description is this: it already existed when Vietnam first started growing coffee! It's worth noting that Vietnam's coffee cultivation began during the French colonial period in the late 19th century, which means its creation predates this period. After all, Vietnam had just started growing coffee at that time and would not have invented coffee brewing equipment. Therefore, based on various inferences, the final conclusion on the internet is that "although this drip filter bears the name of Vietnam, it was not invented in Vietnam."

Vietnamese Condensed Milk Coffee

Although Vietnam achieved great success in coffee cultivation and quickly joined the ranks of major coffee-producing countries, because the main bean variety produced is Robusta, the local extracted coffee taste is generally bitter and strong! This led people in Vietnam not to expect excellent floral and fruity aromas in their coffee—as long as the coffee wasn't bitter and was drinkable, that was sufficient. Therefore, they thought of adding condensed milk to coffee to neutralize the bitterness of Robusta. Unexpectedly, this practice was well-received by everyone, so at that time, street vendors selling Vietnamese condensed milk coffee could be seen everywhere~

How to Use Vietnam Drip Filter

Next is how to use the Vietnam Drip Filter, which is very simple. FrontStreet Coffee's extraction parameters are as follows:

Beans Used: Indonesia · Golden Mandheling
Weight Used: 10g (because FrontStreet Coffee's drip filter is small-cup capacity)
Grind Setting: Ek43 setting 11, 65% pass rate on #20 sieve
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Brewing Water Temperature: 90°C

The traditional method is to add coffee grounds to the pot body, press them flat with the press, then pour in the target amount of hot water all at once, then simply cover with the lid and wait for the coffee liquid to finish dripping through the holes. It takes 3 minutes, and the extracted taste is very balanced without any unpleasant feelings.

However, it has one drawback: the gaps in the holes are too large, often allowing fine powder to drip out along with the coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends placing a layer of filter paper at the bottom when using it, which can reduce the unpleasant feelings caused by fine powder. If you want to make Vietnamese condensed milk coffee, simply add an amount of condensed milk that suits your preference to the bottom of the cup (FrontStreet Coffee adds 8ml of condensed milk per 100ml of coffee liquid).

Wait, why does it look somewhat like a pour-over filter? This suddenly gave FrontStreet Coffee a bold idea: if we use the pour-over method to brew, what kind of characteristics would the coffee have? Great! Let's brew it right away! The extraction parameters are as follows:

Beans Used: Kenya · Assalia
Weight Used: 10g
Grind Setting: Ek43 setting 10, 70% pass rate on #20 sieve
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Brewing Water Temperature: 92°C
Pouring Method: Three-stage pour

First, pour twice the amount of water as the grounds (20ml) for a 30-second bloom. After the bloom ends, slowly pour in a second stage of 80ml of hot water in large circles. When the water level is about to run out, slowly pour in the remaining 50ml of hot water in large circles again, then wait for the dripping to finish~

The total time was 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Although it steeped for so long, there was no over-extracted bitter taste. The plum and tomato flavors of Kenya were well-expressed, but overall it was somewhat "flat" without very distinct layering. But that's okay, this was just a fun experiment—it's always good to try the diversity of brewing equipment~

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473