How was coffee introduced to Vietnam?
The first coffee trees followed the French colonial introduction to Vietnam in the nineteenth century. The main coffee variety grown in Vietnam is Robusta seed variety with bold and bitter characteristics. This is also the beginning of influencing the taste of Vietnamese people to enjoy coffee.
After 1975, coffee trees began to thrive in the Central Highlands provinces and gradually became a popular drink in people's lives.
Since the 1990s, Vietnam has become the 2nd largest coffee exporter in the world after Brazil, focusing on exporting Robusta varieties and creating a very distinct culture of enjoying unique coffee through each region.
Egg coffee – A unique drink from Hanoi
Egg coffee was created stemming from the lack of... milk. Legend has it that Nguyen Van Giang used to be a famous chef at Metropole Hotel who created this special coffee. In 1940, when everything was scarce, he wanted to create a sweet, milky and creamy drink like Cappuchino. After many trials, egg coffee was born. The ingredients to make egg coffee are quite simple, including fresh chicken eggs, sugar, milk, coffee. The egg yolks are machine whipped with milk, sugar and then poured over a cup of black coffee. Egg coffee cups are usually kept heated by a cup so that the water is hot and left out for a long time will easily become fishy.
The sweet fluffiness seems to have nothing to do with the bitterness of coffee, but when drunk, it definitely feels the perfect charming blend. Egg coffee is one of the drinks in the TOP 17 most worth trying in the world, is the opening cup of coffee for the discovery of Vietnam's cultural journey.
Bold, slow cup of Central coffee
In the Central or especially the dreamy city of Hue, there is no inherent coffee. Coffee cups are usually very few and much richer than Southern and Northern coffee cups. The owner will serve coffee with a direct brew filter and then let customers sit and wait for each drop of coffee to fall into the cup, slowly and gently. A filter can only filter out about 1/5 of a small cup. A little sugar and ice is enough to chill rather than dilute the coffee too much.
Central cafes are usually in quiet, peaceful areas that are simply decorated. Cafes like meditation shops help people calm down, contemplate, evoke joys and sorrows, memories over a cup of rich coffee, as an ethereal daily pleasure.
Silver bleach – as sweet as the Saigon people
Silver faint comes from the phrase "silver bleach faint" (silver is white, bleach is a glass, faint is a little, phé is coffee), that is, coffee with a little milk. Silver faint is also the creative drink of working people, and it also stems from the lack of fresh milk in the past.
To replace the luxury item - fresh milk, condensed milk Ong Tho or The Bird is replaced. However, condensed milk mixed with hot water tastes a bit faint, so people think of adding a little coffee taste to drown out that smell. So the silver faint was born.
The way of drinking coffee of Saigon people is very generous and they consider coffee cups as soft drinks. Coffee cups are usually very sweet, almost drowning out the bitterness of coffee and given a lot of ice. In Hanoi and Hue, it is usually served filters and cups, while in Saigon, coffee will mainly be prepared and drunk with ... straws. Saigonese people are also not used to drinking Hanoi or Hue-style coffee because the coffee cup is too bold and the drinking style is too slow.