Ipoh White Coffee
Kopi putih IpohKO-pee POO-teh EE-poh
A pale, frothy, sweet milk coffee, smoother and nuttier than ordinary kopi. The white has nothing to do with the milk. It describes how the beans are roasted, with margarine and without the sugar that turns other kopi black.
At a glance
- Coffee : water
- 1:6
- Active time
- 2 min
- Total time
- 7 min
- Makes
- 2 cups
- Serve
- Hot or iced
- Kit
- Cloth sock + kettle
Ingredients
Note: The 3-in-1 sachets labelled white coffee are a convenience product, already mixed with creamer and sugar. They taste of the idea of white coffee rather than the thing.
Method
-
Steep in the sock
Put the coffee in the cloth sock in a heatproof jug and pour the boiling water through. Leave it for three to four minutes, dunking the sock occasionally.
Steep 3 to 4 minutes -
Condensed milk in the cup
Spoon the condensed milk into each cup.
-
Pull it for froth
Lift out the sock. Pour the coffee onto the condensed milk, then pour it back and forth between the cup and a jug from as high as you dare, five or six times, until a thick froth forms.
The froth is the signature of Ipoh white coffee. It needs the height.
-
Serve full
Fill the cup to the brim with froth on top and serve straight away, with egg tarts if you are being properly Ipoh about it.
Why this works
Most kopi in Malaysia and Singapore is roasted with margarine and sugar, which caramelises onto the beans and turns them black and glossy, with a burnt-caramel bitterness. Ipoh white coffee is roasted with margarine only. Without the sugar there is far less caramelisation at the surface of the bean, so the roast is lighter in colour and the flavour is smoother, nuttier and less bitter. That is the white. It is the roast compared with the black sugar roast, not the milk.
The margarine does two things. It coats the beans and carries heat evenly into them during roasting, and its fats add a buttery, rounded note to the finished cup. Because the coffee is less bitter, it pairs easily with condensed milk without needing a lot of it, which is why the drink tastes creamy rather than syrupy.
The froth comes from pulling. Pouring coffee and condensed milk between vessels from height drives air into the liquid, and the milk proteins and coffee oils stabilise it into a foam, the same technique as teh tarik. Ipoh cafés take pride in a cup that arrives frothed to the brim.
The drink is linked to the old town of Ipoh in Perak, a tin mining city, where Hainanese-run kopitiams were roasting coffee this way by the early twentieth century. Its fame outside the region came much later, when packaged and instant white coffee was sold across Southeast Asia from the late 1990s and the name became a brand category in its own right.
Variations
- Iced: pour the pulled coffee over a glass of ice.
- Kosong: without condensed milk, black and unsweetened, which shows the roast best.
- With evaporated milk: the kopi C version, with a teaspoon of sugar.
- With a moka pot: brew the white coffee powder in a moka pot and pull it with condensed milk.
Made it?
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Questions
Why is it called white coffee?
Because of the roast. Ipoh white coffee is roasted with margarine only, while ordinary kopi is roasted with margarine and sugar, which turns it very dark. White refers to the lighter roast, not the milk.
What does Ipoh white coffee taste like?
Smooth, nutty and buttery, with less bitterness than ordinary kopi. Served with condensed milk it is sweet and creamy.
Is white coffee less caffeinated?
Not meaningfully. Roast level makes little difference to caffeine. The difference is in flavour and bitterness.
Are the instant sachets the same?
No. Instant white coffee sachets are pre-mixed with creamer and sugar. They are convenient but taste noticeably different from brewed Ipoh white coffee.