Vietnamese Iced Coffee
Sweetened condensed milk and dark-roast coffee, dripped slow through a phin filter and poured over ice — built to fix a July afternoon.
- Serves
- 1
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 5 min
- Written
Method
-
Spoon the condensed milk into a tall glass and set an empty phin filter on top.
-
Add the coffee grounds to the phin, tap the perforated press flat against them, and screw it down snug.
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Pour in just enough boiling water to wet the grounds and let them bloom for 30 seconds, then fill the phin the rest of the way.
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Let it drip through undisturbed, 4 to 5 minutes, until the chamber runs dry and the glass holds a dark, syrupy pool sitting on top of the condensed milk.
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Lift off the phin, stir until the coffee and condensed milk fold into one uniform color, then pour over a full glass of ice.
Notes
The condensed milk is doing two jobs, not one — it sweetens, but it also rounds off the bitterness that a dark roast brewed this strong would otherwise have, so don’t cut it with regular milk and sugar instead. The slow drip matters too: a phin pulls a thicker, more concentrated coffee than a drip machine gets to in the same amount of grounds, and that concentration is what still tastes like coffee once it hits a full glass of ice.
No phin, no problem — a moka pot works, or drip coffee brewed at double strength. Either way, pour it hot over the condensed milk and stir before the ice goes in, so it dissolves instead of just sitting at the bottom of the glass.