Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Vietnamese Iced Coffee is an incredibly rich and velvety smooth coffee drink that's quick to prepare and absolutely amazing, sure to impress friends and liven conversation after dinner. If you're a coffee drinker, there is no doubt in my mind that you'll love this beverage, after all, with years of French influence in Vietnam, their culinary skills and practices have become a beautiful art form. Vietnamese is really modern Haute dining at it's finest. I would consider this drink to be almost a dessert, it's so rich, it could easily be served as such.

Trung Nguyên Coffee is excellent for this drink, it's an extremely dark French-style Vietnamese coffee that has a spicy, smoky and dark chocolate flavor. It can be purchased at most any Asian markets, and I've seen it at a number of larger supermarkets in their Ethnic Sections. It's suprisingly inexpensive, usually a 500g box is in the $5USD ballpark. Inside the box comes two seperate vacuum bags to keep your coffee fresh, a thoughtful touch by the company.

You'll need either a French press or more efficently, one of these little stainless single serving press coffee makers, perfect for this coffee, when it's served at a Vietnamese restaurant, this is what you'll get. Many Asian markets have these, and there's one on the page for Trung Nguyên, linked here. They're reasonably priced, indeed the one in the previous link is $4.50 USD, and because they're made of stainless with no mechanical parts other than a screw in the center, they should last literally forever.

A can of Sweetened Condensed Milk (not Evaporated Milk). Any brand will do, but to be specifically Vietnamese, a brand like Black and White Full Cream or Longevity Brand Full Cream is the closest to authentic. Yes, the nutrition stats and calories on this are painful, but you only use about a tablespoon per cup of coffee, and as desserts go, this drink is easily as satisfying as a piece of French Silk Pie, with far fewer calories and fat.

Have a glass of Ice Ready, you'll need it shortly!

Place a heaping Tablespoon of coffee in the coffee maker, screw it down tight, then back off the screw one full turn. Fill the coffee maker with boiling water and it will slowly drip into your coffee cup below. If you're noticing it progressing much too slowly, use a teaspoon in the little slot and loosen the screw another half turn. After doing this a couple times, it will become second nature to brew the perfect cup, it should be as strong as espresso; that's perfect for this drink.

When all the hot water has brewed through, add a Tablespoon and a half of the Sweetened condensed milk. Stir the hot coffee and the condensed milk together, and pour over your glass of ice.

Here's the finished product, a beautiful milk-chocolate colored glass of iced coffee. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do, and good luck in your next culinary adventure!