Make Delicious Frozen Vietnamese Coffee With Just 3 Ingredients
If you're a coffee connoisseur passionate about trying different drinks, you might want to taste-test Vietnamese coffee. It typically uses high-caffeine beans grown in Vietnam, and it's brewed to have a strong flavor with the help of a phin, a metal coffee filter that brews a single cup. The intense taste is countered by the addition of sweetened condensed milk, which adds creaminess to each glass.
While Vietnamese coffee can be served over ice cubes to cool it, you can also freeze it to make a cold, refreshing treat. All you'll need to do to make a frozen variety of the drink is brew your coffee, mix in some sugar, freeze it, and serve it with the condensed milk on top.
Because the brewed coffee will need a while to freeze, you'll want to start prepping the drink a few hours ahead of when you want to actually enjoy it.
How to prep frozen Vietnamese coffee
You'll want the coffee to be a slushy consistency, not frozen solid. To achieve that, pour the coffee into a glass baking dish and allow the coffee to freeze. (This can take anywhere from three to eight hours.) Then, remove the coffee from the freezer and use a fork to scrape it into smaller pieces. If you're having difficulty breaking it up with a fork, you can break pieces off and put them in a blender or food processor to break them up.
Once the frozen coffee is broken into shavings, place those pieces back into the freezer until you're ready to serve the coffee. Then, scoop the shaved coffee into a serving bowl or glass.
Crack open a can of sweetened condensed milk and drizzle the condensed milk over the coffee. Then, grab a spoon or straw and enjoy your frozen coffee treat.
The French introduced the ingredients to Vietnam
Coffee was introduced to Vietnam in 1857, when a French priest hoped to begin growing Arabica beans in the northern region. However, Vietnam's central highlands provided a better growing environment for the beans, and production of Robusta beans began there in the early 1900s.
The sweetened condensed milk, too, was thanks to influence from the French. As coffee became more popular, coffee drinkers had a hard time finding enough Vietnamese-produced milk to lighten the flavor up, and importing it proved difficult. Sweetened condensed milk, however, was sold in cans. It had a longer shelf life, thanks to the water of the milk being evaporated, making it a popular choice for use in the caffeinated beverage.
Today, Vietnamese coffee is commonly sold by street vendors with carts, though it's also easy to make at home. Other variations of the drink, such as Vietnamese egg coffee, have developed throughout the years. If you want to amplify the drink and enjoy a frozen treat, just let your coffee freeze before scraping it into a glass and sweetening it.