Vietnamese Coffee Workshop with Egg, Salt & Coconut Coffee Hanoi

The story of Vietnamese coffee

Coffee reached Vietnam with French missionaries in the 1850s, and plantations soon spread across the cool uplands. Today the country is the world's second-largest coffee producer and the leading grower of robusta, a strong, chocolatey bean that thrives in the volcanic red soils of the Central Highlands around Buon Ma Thuot. Because robusta is bold and slightly bitter, Vietnamese cafés developed their own ways of drinking it: slow-dripped through a small metal phin filter and softened with condensed milk, eggs, coconut or salted cream.

The workshop begins with this history. Your instructor shows you green and roasted beans, explains how coffee trees are grown and harvested, how roasting changes the flavour and how to tell genuine coffee from low-grade blends padded with roasted soybeans or corn. It is a useful lesson before you buy coffee to take away from Hanoi.

Egg coffee, Hanoi's own creation

Egg coffee is Hanoi's most famous drink. It was created in the 1940s, when fresh milk was scarce, by whisking egg yolks with sugar and condensed milk into a thick, velvety cream that sits on top of strong black coffee. The result tastes like a light custard or tiramisu, and in Hanoi's old cafés it is served in a small cup set in a bowl of hot water to keep it warm.

In the workshop you learn the technique yourself: how long to whip the yolk, how to get the foam airy and stable and how to layer it so it floats on the coffee. Many people who try egg coffee in Hanoi wonder how it is made; here you leave knowing how to make it again in your own kitchen.

Salt coffee and coconut coffee

Salt coffee began in the old imperial city of Hue in central Vietnam and has become one of the country's most talked-about drinks. A pinch of salt is whipped into a cream foam that sits on top of robusta coffee with condensed milk; the salt softens the bitterness and brings out the sweetness, giving a rich and balanced taste. Coconut coffee, a southern-style favourite now popular across Hanoi, blends strong coffee with coconut milk and ice into a cool, creamy drink that is perfect on hot days.

Under your instructor's guidance you prepare both, along with original Vietnamese brown coffee, made with the phin filter and condensed milk, a pour-over that brings out the fruity notes of the beans, and a signature house creation. Each brew is tasted as soon as it is ready, so you can compare them side by side.

The workshop venue and how the experience works

The class takes place in a local coffee venue in a quiet lane off Hoang Hoa Tham Street in the Ba Dinh district, west of the Old Quarter and away from its traffic. On the default option our driver collects you from your Old Quarter hotel, the ride takes about 15 minutes, and you are welcomed with refreshments before the class starts. All tools are provided, from grinders and filters to phin brewers, and you work at your own station with the instructor demonstrating each step.

The whole workshop lasts about three hours including transfers, and you are dropped back at your hotel at the end. The recipe book lets you repeat the brews later, and a certificate is available on request. It is a good activity for a rainy afternoon or a slower day between sightseeing.