Yogurt Coffee
Cà phê sữa chuaka fey suh-uh choo-ah
Thick, sweet-sour yogurt in the bottom of the glass, crushed ice, and a dark pour of robusta over the top. It tastes like a coffee cheesecake that has been left out in the sun, which is meant as praise.
At a glance
- Coffee : yogurt
- 1:2.5
- Active time
- 5 min
- Total time
- 10 min
- Makes
- 1 glass
- Serve
- Cold, with a spoon
- Kit
- Phin filter
Ingredients
Note: Vietnamese yogurt is set with condensed milk, so it is sweet and dense before anything is added. Stirring condensed milk into a plain whole-milk yogurt gets you very close.
Method
-
Brew and cool the coffee
Phin the coffee into a small jug as usual, bloom first, four minutes of dripping. Then put the jug in a bowl of ice water and stir it until it is cold to the touch.
It has to be cold. Hot coffee on yogurt curdles the surface into grainy flecks.
Drip 4 minutes, chill 5 -
Sweeten the yogurt
Stir the condensed milk into the yogurt until smooth and glossy. Taste it. It should be properly sweet with a clean sour edge, sweeter than you would eat for breakfast.
-
Build the glass
Spoon the yogurt into the bottom of a short glass and pack crushed ice on top of it, up to about two thirds.
Crushed rather than cubes. It chills faster and you eat it with the yogurt.
-
Pour and serve
Pour the cold coffee over the ice and serve with a spoon. Let the person drinking it do the stirring. Some like it marbled, some like it beaten together into a pale coffee mousse.
Why this works
Yogurt and coffee should not get on. Both are acidic, and two sour things together usually taste sharper, not better. What makes this drink work is sugar and fat. Vietnamese yogurt is set from milk sweetened with condensed milk, so by the time it reaches the glass it is dense, rich and sweet, and the lactic acid reads as a bright edge rather than a sour one. Robusta adds bitterness and roast, which is the third side of the triangle. Sweet, sour and bitter balanced against each other is the same structure as a good cocktail.
The temperature rule comes from the protein. Yogurt is milk whose casein has already been coagulated by acid into a soft gel. Gentle heat is fine, but pour 85°C coffee onto it and those proteins tighten and squeeze out water, which is the grainy texture you see when yogurt is added to a hot curry too fast. Chill the coffee first and the gel stays smooth. Hot coffee also kills the live cultures, which matters to some people and not others.
Robusta is the right bean for the same reason as in every other Vietnamese milk coffee. Fat and sugar mute flavour, and a light arabica simply vanishes into the yogurt. A dark robusta keeps the coffee visible.
You find it at Hanoi street cafes and in plenty of places in the south. It is an everyday drink rather than a famous one, and nobody seems to claim it.
Variations
- With fruit: a spoon of passion fruit pulp or mango on the yogurt before the ice. Common in Hanoi.
- Blended: everything in the blender with the ice for a yogurt coffee smoothie.
- Nếp cẩm: a spoon of sweet purple sticky rice under the yogurt, the dessert version.
- Greek yogurt: thicker and sourer. Add an extra spoon of condensed milk and a splash of milk to loosen it.
Made it?
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Questions
Does yogurt coffee taste sour?
A little, in a good way. The yogurt is sweetened with condensed milk, so the sourness reads as a fresh edge against the bitter coffee rather than tasting sharp. If it is too sour, add more condensed milk.
Why did my yogurt go grainy?
The coffee was too hot. Heat tightens the already-set yogurt proteins and they squeeze out water. Chill the coffee in an ice bath before pouring.
What yogurt should I use?
Vietnamese sữa chua if you can get it. Otherwise a plain set whole-milk yogurt sweetened with condensed milk. Low-fat yogurt makes a thin, sharp drink.
Is yogurt coffee a breakfast?
In Vietnam it is more of an afternoon thing, eaten slowly with a spoon. It has a fair amount of caffeine from the robusta and a fair amount of sugar, so treat it like a dessert.