Liquid Tiramisu? Extraordinary Vietnamese Egg Coffee Recipe! The Correct Way to Make Vietnamese Coffee!

As everyone knows!

Vietnam has two famous specialty coffees: one is the Cà Phê Trứng that FrontStreet Coffee introduced recently, and the other is egg coffee made with raw eggs. Today's subject is the latter — Vietnamese egg coffee, a must-try for most tourists visiting Vietnam. Lately, a new way of making it has been trending online, and everyone who has tried it calls it "liquid tiramisu." Naturally, FrontStreet Coffee got curious: what kind of texture and flavor earns that name?

Exploring Vietnamese Egg Coffee

So today we're recreating it from the popular online recipe to see whether the result is truly as magical as advertised. But first, in keeping with FrontStreet Coffee tradition, a quick introduction to Vietnamese egg coffee.

Like sugar and dairy, eggs originally played a supporting role in Vietnamese coffee — a flavoring to soften coffee's bitterness. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer, but it grows mostly Robusta, a high-yielding variety with a comparatively rough taste. Deep roasting makes Robusta's bitterness even heavier and more prominent, and for most people that intensity is hard to take — so sugar, dairy, and similar additions became the standard way to balance the cup. During wartime, though, dairy grew scarce. Sugar could still blunt the bitterness, but people missed the smooth texture dairy brought. And so the practice of whisking eggs into coffee was born.

Origins and Evolution

The technique of whisking eggs into coffee was invented by Nguyen Van Giang. The original version used only egg yolks and white sugar, whisked to a cream-like consistency and poured over coffee as a stand-in for milk (condensed milk). After the war, once dairy was available again, Giang added condensed milk, butter, and other ingredients to enrich and thicken the drink, creating an entirely new version of egg coffee. It was outstanding in both taste and texture, and caught on immediately. Other cafes in town quickly copied the recipe, and as more and more shops began serving it, egg coffee grew into one of Vietnam's signature specialties.

Preparing the "Liquid Tiramisu"

As you can tell, egg coffee is not hard to make: prepare the ingredients, whisk them, and pour the coffee over. The trending version we mentioned works the same way — the only difference is the ingredients. So let's find out what "liquid tiramisu" really tastes like.

The ingredient list is simple: cream, condensed milk, cocoa powder, eggs, and a cup of strong coffee. One note: for stomach safety, use pasteurized eggs at home. As for the coffee, you have options — pour-over, moka pot, AeroPress, or espresso diluted with water all work. Choose a medium-dark or dark roast so the coffee's bitterness can stand up to the sweetness of the egg "cream." The ratio of coffee to egg cream is adjustable to taste. For convenience, FrontStreet Coffee used espresso diluted with water, made with Warm Sun Blend beans: 20g of grounds extracted for 30 seconds to yield 40ml of espresso (a 1:2 ratio), then diluted with twice that amount of water.

The Making Process

One important note: make the coffee after the egg cream is done, because whisking takes a while and coffee won't wait. So whisk the eggs first! FrontStreet Coffee's egg cream recipe is the most widely used one online: 2 pasteurized egg yolks, 20ml condensed milk, 30ml cream.

The steps are simple: put everything in a bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until the mixture thickens and you can clearly feel resistance.

It sounds easy, but our mixer isn't the most powerful, so it took about 10 minutes. Which taught us first-hand what people mean by "laziness drives progress."

The Final Creation

With the eggs whisked, brew the coffee, then pour the coffee and the egg "cream" into a prepared glass in that order. (We used 120ml of coffee and 80ml of egg cream.)

Dust the surface with cocoa powder, and your "liquid tiramisu" — Vietnamese egg coffee — is done!

Tasting Experience

The moment it hit the tongue, FrontStreet Coffee confirmed the rumors: it really does taste — or perhaps "eat" is the better word — like tiramisu. The texture is silky and dense, melting in the mouth (naturally), with no eggy flavor whatsoever. The ingredients integrate almost perfectly, each showing its character without masking the others: the light bitterness of cocoa, the richness of cream, the sweetness of condensed milk, the density of egg, all woven around the coffee. The Warm Sun Blend was a particularly good call — its natural whiskey-like aroma stands in for the missing liqueur note and brings the drink even closer to true tiramisu. All in all, excellent. FrontStreet Coffee strongly recommends trying it if you have the time. One final tip: our shop does not serve this — no, really, we don't.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The backbone of a good egg coffee is a strong, well-bodied espresso base. The FrontStreet Coffee Signature Espresso Blend — FrontStreet's shop blend for nearly a decade — pairs Brazil Cerrado with Colombia Huila for that classic, familiar espresso character, and works beautifully for home or commercial machines. The FrontStreet Coffee Classic Blend, built on the traditional Mandheling-Brazil formula, is designed specifically for espresso and moka pots and pulls exceptionally thick, creamy crema — ideal for lattes, cappuccinos, and Dirts, and easy even for beginners on basic home machines.

If you prefer your milk coffee on the fruity side, the FrontStreet Coffee Strawberry Candy Blend recreates the sweet aroma of strawberry gummy through the blending of arabica beans from different origins — gentle enough for those who fear bitterness, and a distinctive choice for a signature milk drink. And on the budget side, the 100% arabica FrontStreet Coffee Dark Cocoa Blend offers ample crema, a mellow chocolatey cup, and friendly pricing.