Saigon’s Best Vietnamese Coffee Drinks

Vietnam may be the world’s second-largest coffee producer—and home to one of its great café cultures—but coffee beans are a surprisingly recent import here. First introduced by French missionaries in the mid-19th century, the crop eventually took root in the Central Highlands. Production surged following the Đổi Mới economic reforms of the late 1980s, transforming Vietnam into the coffee powerhouse it is today.

Coffee is an integral part of Vietnamese daily life, with cups enjoyed over long conversations from morning until late at night in old family-run shops and design-forward specialty cafés. Historically, Vietnamese coffee has centered on robusta, whose bold, chocolaty character lends itself well to the phin, a single-serve metal filter.

Add sweetened condensed milk and ice, and you get Vietnamese iced coffee, or cà phê sữa đá: bitter, sweet, and cold. Then there’s bạc xỉu, the sweeter, milkier Saigon remix that flips the ratio, adding just enough coffee to a glass of mostly milk for something lighter.

Across Vietnam, different regions and communities have developed their own ways of drinking coffee. The northern capital, Hanoi, gave rise to silky cà phê trứng, made with whipped egg yolks and sugar, while in central Vietnam, the former imperial capital of Huế produced cà phê muối, which tempers coffee’s bitterness with salt.

Saigon’s historic Chinese immigrant community also left its mark with cà phê vợt, a once-common method of brewing coffee through a cloth “sock” filter that survives at a handful of old-school shops today. In recent years, a new generation of roasters and baristas has been expanding the definition of Vietnamese coffee, spotlighting modern brewing methods like pour-overs using arabica from Sơn La, Măng Đen, and other high-altitude growing regions.

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One popular Vietnamese coffee drink is cà phê sữa đá, which can be found at Highlands Coffee, a chain founded by Vietnamese American entrepreneur David Thái. Another popular drink is bạc xỉu, which can be found at Lacàph Coffee Bar, a design-forward café in District 1.

Cà phê trứng, a Northern classic made with whipped egg yolks and sugar, can be found at Little Hanoi Egg Coffee, while cà phê muối can be found at Hue Cafe Roastery. Cà phê vợt, a traditional method of brewing coffee through a cloth “sock” filter, can be found at Cà Phê Vợt.

Saigon is home to a thriving specialty coffee scene, with cafes like Sipply Coffee, Every Half Coffee Roasters, and The Hummingbird Café & Roastery.

As the specialty coffee scene in Saigon continues to grow and evolve, it’s likely that we’ll see even more innovative and delicious coffee drinks in the future. With its rich coffee culture and thriving café scene, Saigon is a must-visit destination for any coffee lover, especially those interested in trying local coffee and exploring the city’s culinary delights.