Recipe

Cà Phê Sữa Đá: Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Name: Cà Phê Sữa Đá (Vietnamese Iced Coffee)
Prep time: 2 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 7 min
Yield: 1 serving
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons medium-coarse ground Vietnamese robusta coffee (about 20 g); ½ cup hot water, 195–205°F (about 100–120 ml); 2–3 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk, to taste; 1 cup ice cubes

Strong phin-brewed robusta poured over sweetened condensed milk and ice. It's the most famous coffee in Việt Nam, and it comes together in about seven minutes.

~7 min total
Serves 1
No machine needed

Five kraft-paper bags reading Bon Mua Oregon — Taste the Truth, 100% Premium Robusta Coffee, arranged with lines of green coffee beans on a dark wood table.

What is it?

Vietnam’s iced coffee, done right

Cà phê sữa đá means, almost literally, “coffee milk ice.” It was born of practicality: fresh milk was hard to keep in Việt Nam’s heat, so sweetened condensed milk became the partner to strong, dark coffee. The result outlived its origins and became the country’s signature cup.

The whole thing rests on one idea: the coffee has to be strong enough to stand up to the milk. That’s why robusta — bold, low-acid, roughly twice the caffeine of arabica — is the classic choice.

Gather

Ingredients

3 tablespoons medium-coarse ground Vietnamese robusta coffee (about 20 g)
½ cup hot water, 195–205°F (about 100–120 ml)
2–3 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk, to taste
1 cup ice cubes

At a glance

Yield: 1 serving
Prep: ~2 minutes
Brew: 4–5 minutes
Total: ~7 minutes
Cuisine: Vietnamese

The method

Four steps to cà phê sữa đá

Start with the condensed milk

Spoon 2–3 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of a tall heatproof glass. More milk means a sweeter, creamier cup — start with two and adjust next time.
Brew a strong phin over it

Set your phin filter on the glass, add the ground robusta, bloom with a little hot water, then fill and cap. Let it drip 4–5 minutes straight onto the condensed milk. (New to the phin? See our step-by-step phin guide.)
Stir until smooth

Lift off the phin and stir the hot coffee and condensed milk together until the mixture turns an even, caramel brown with no streaks left at the bottom.
Pour over ice and serve

Fill a second glass to the top with ice and pour the sweetened coffee over it. Give it a final stir and drink it right away, while it is cold and strong.

Make it yours

Variations

Same base, small changes.

Cà phê sữa nóng (hot milk coffee). Skip the ice. Brew the coffee straight onto the condensed milk, stir, and drink it warm.
Cà phê đá (black iced coffee). Leave out the condensed milk for a bold, unsweetened iced cup — just coffee and ice.
Dial the sweetness. Two tablespoons of condensed milk is balanced; add a third if you like it dessert-sweet, or ease back for a more bitter, grown-up cup.