vietnamese coffee filter

[reuvens]

as i drank this kind of sweet coffee in san francisco the first time i totally forgot to buy a few of those filters as they are a nice optical treat to invited friends and of course myself! did i say that the coffee is good too!?!

i am located in germany but there might be a chance to buy them? yes or no?

[laurenmilan]

as i drank this kind of sweet coffee in san francisco the first time i totally forgot to buy a few of those filters as they are a nice optical treat to invited friends and of course myself! did i say that the coffee is good too!?!

i am located in germany but there might be a chance to buy them? yes or no?

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I fell in love with this drink when I first tried it at a vietnamese restaurant. I picked my metal coffee filter up at a neighborhood Asian foods store, they may be found at any store that sells Vietnamese/Thai/Malaysian specialty foods/cookware, but it's worth a look in Chinese or pan-Asian stores as well. Mine cost $5 each.

They're also available online, but I'm unsure as to what companies ship to Germany. Here's a Froogle search for "vietnamese coffee press" that's turned up a lot of good results:

Froogle search

Oh, and here's a primer on creating the drink that helped me immensely:

Illustrated guide to Vietnamese iced coffee

Edited October 1, 2004 by laurenmilan (log)

[phaelon56]

I bought mine at an Asian grocery for about $4 - $5. They were about $1 - $1.50 cheaper online but with shipping added in it was easier to buy them in the store and about the same total price.

I also love that coffee as so many of us do. Here in the US most Vietnamese restaurants either use the dark roasted coffee/chicory blend available as the Cafe du Monde brand of canned coffee or they use Community Coffee (another New Orleans LA based brand that is dark roasted but without chicory added).

The absolute best Viet style iced coffee I've had has been made with the Trung Nguyen brand which is imported from Vietnam. It's definitely superior to the others. I haven't seen it in Asian stores in my area but believe it is available online and in some larger cities. It's worth seeking out.

[reuvens]

i will try my best. and then next:

how do you actually prepare one of those sweet delights?

[reuvens]

i will try my best. and then next:

how do you actually prepare one of those sweet delights?

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i am sleeping already. i just saw the instructions above, sorry

vue

[phaelon56]

Those instructions are really good but I'll make a few suggestions for slight change, based on the way most Viet restaurants serve it.

• * Fill the tall glass with ice at the onset and have a long handled iced tea spoon available
  * Set the filter on a short glass allowing it to drip onto the condensed milk
  * Try to have a ratio of about four parts espresso to one part milk; if made with good coffee the drink can be much darker than the one pictured and more flavorful as a result
  * stir really throughly once all the coffee has dripped through - I use the spoon to scrape down the last bits of condensed milk that are still stuck to the inside and bottom of the glass
  * After stirring, pour it over the ice - don't worry about any small bit of water that's in the bottom of the tall glass where the ice has started to melt - if the drink is made strong enough that just blends in and you end up with the perfect balance
  

I usually let mine drip through as slow as it wished, stir and mix midway through the meal and then take a few sips. I don't really drink mine until I'm done with the meal, at which point it's sort of like having coffee and dessert all in onw glass

[reuvens]

i got an email from a girl who visited vietnam recently and bought a cheap aluminum version of the coffee filter for 50 cents!!!

is anybody from vietnam watching??????

i really want this filters now.

vue

[Yajna Patni]

I got two of those aluminum ones in Cambodia this summer . THey were a dollar for two. They are not quite like the Stainless oens i have seen here, but the result seems just the same. They dont havea ascrew, but a little tamp inside with holes knocked in it with a little nail, and then a saucher under it with more holes with a little nail.

[aiki_brewer]

Slightly off topic, but does anybody have a source for Thai-style muslin coffee bags? The best cup I've ever had on the planet may just have been the one I bought for 10 baht (about a quarter) from a street vendor, grounds in a muslin bag that had been steeping in a tin can of hot water probably since the last monsoon season, poured over sweetened condensed milk.

[reuvens]

I got two of those aluminum ones in Cambodia this summer . THey were a dollar for two. They are not quite like the Stainless oens i have seen here, but the result seems just the same. They dont havea ascrew, but a little tamp inside with holes knocked in it with a little nail, and then a saucher under it with more holes with a little nail.

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can you get more of those ones????????????????????

they are exactly what i am talking about

vue

[QuinaQuen]

as i drank this kind of sweet coffee in san francisco the first time i totally forgot to buy a few of those filters as they are a nice optical treat to invited friends and of course myself! did i say that the coffee is good too!?!

i am located in germany but there might be a chance to buy them? yes or no?

←

yikes, Germany. Look up ca phe sua da on google if all else fails. But hop the old eurail to the Czech, and you might just find a Vietnamese community left over from the communist era. And even if you don't find the contraptions, that Becherovka liquor seems almost divinely predestined to be mixed with sua da. A little chicory coffee dripped into frozen sweetened condensed milk with a standard-issue melitta filter, and you pretty much have it.

[QuinaQuen]

I bought mine at an Asian grocery for about $4 - $5. They were about $1 - $1.50 cheaper online but with shipping added in it was easier to buy them in the store and about the same total price.

I also love that coffee as so many of us do.  Here in the US most Vietnamese restaurants either use the dark roasted coffee/chicory blend available as the Cafe du Monde brand of canned coffee or they use Community Coffee (another New Orleans LA based brand that is dark roasted but without chicory added).

The absolute best Viet style iced coffee I've had has been made with the Trung Nguyen brand which is imported from Vietnam. It's definitely superior to the others.  I haven't seen it in Asian stores in my area but believe it is available online and in some larger cities. It's worth seeking out.

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If you have a few good asian markets in your town, it's well worth your while to find a brand of Vietnamese coffee with butter listed as one of the ingredients (memory fails me as to the exact brand). It's a bit much straight up, but it's truly extraordinary in sua da.

[phaelon56]

Slightly off topic, but does anybody have a source for Thai-style muslin coffee bags? The best cup I've ever had on the planet may just have been the one I bought for 10 baht (about a quarter) from a street vendor, grounds in a muslin bag that had been steeping in a tin can of hot water probably since the last monsoon season, poured over sweetened condensed milk.

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Check any decent sized Spanish market - specifically one that caters to the Spanish speaking Caribbean population (Cuban. Puerto Rican, Dominican etc.). There's a little windsock shaped coffee filter or cloth sock that's attached to a metal ring and has a wooden handle. Can't recall the Spamnish word for it but look fro Bustela coffee and you'll find this inthe same section. Put dark roast coffee in a pan of water, bring just to the boil, turn off heat and let it steep for 4 - 5 minutes then pour through the sock. Coffee will be very strong and dark - usually served with heavily sweetened black or mixed 50/50 with scalded milk. I imagine it would be very good with the sweetened condensed milk. If you try this and it's still not quite like what you remember in Thailand... try adding a small amount of cardamom to the brew. That happens to be the mystery flavor in Thai Iced Coffee and may possibly be used in some of the hot coffee as well.

[Yajna Patni]

www.importfoods.com has them too

[Yajna Patni]

can you get more of those ones????????????????????

they are exactly what i am talking about

vue

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Sorry....

I am in Boston now. Far from South East Asia!

[peter_nyc]

If you are looking for either the filter or some decent Vietnamese coffee beans, head over to www.bluecloudcoffee.com. Makes for a pretty authentic tasting ca phe sua da

[spaghetttti]

Could you all perhaps be talking about this:

We went out for pho somewhere in Elmhurst (Queens) and got some of this delicious coffee. Loved it so much, I asked the waiter where I could get these filters and he pointed out the supermarket right across from the restaurant. I bought two (US$3.99 + tax each) and now I want more!

Edited January 1, 2005 by spaghetttti (log)

[Yajna Patni]

that is the kind I have gotten in the US. The kind I got in Cambodia is slightly diffrent. the saucer thing is a seperate saucer, with holes knocked in the middle part. so there are two layers of holes, the ones in the bottom of the cup shaped filter, and the ones in the saucer. INside in the kind of your picture I think there is a little screw, or at least there is in mind. In the Cambodia one is just a flat round plate with a handle on top. this has holes in it, and you just tamp it down hard and pur the water in carfully so it dosnt float free. They both work pretty much the same.

Incidnetaly I have taken to making cafe au lait for my morning coffee with these things. really yummy, and quicker to wash than my melita pot.

[Rachel Perlow]

FYI, they don't have them in the housewares section of Han Ah Reum. At least not the one in Little Ferry, NJ. BTW - most of the Vietnamese restaurants around here use Cafe Du Monde chickory coffee from Louisiana to make their coffee.

[birder53]

I bought the pots and the Cafe du Monde in an Asian grocery store. Followed the directions but the coffee was not the same as the wonderful brew I had at Le Colonial. I used Carnation sweetened condensed milk, also from the same grocery store. I let it drip very slowly to get good strong brew. Final review - coffee was not strong enough or sweet enough. I picked up a can of condensed milk at the Reading Terminal Market. It had an oriental style gentleman depicted on the label as well as some oriental copy. I don't know if that will make the difference, but I have to experiment again. Could you use espresso coffee in the pot? Maybe that would be stronger.

[Richard Kilgore]

Have you tried increasing the coffee and condensed milk amounts slightly?

If that doesn't work you could try Longevity brand condensed milk. Another shopper in a Vietnamese market here recommended it to me as the one that Vietnamese-born people in the US prefer because it has a long history in Vietnam. I have been using Trung Nguyen coffee from Vietnam, but most of the Pho shops here use Cafe du Monde or Goya coffee. I have not used it, but a good espresso bean is likely to be better yet.

[yimay]

the sweet coffee drink is called Cafe Sua Da. to get the strong flavor you must use chicory coffee b/c chicory allows you to make a much stronger brew than the same amount of regular coffee lets you. you want to put like 2-4 Tbsps of the chicory coffee in your coffee press and then fill with hot water.

and i'm sure you can find the presses online. search for Vietnamese Coffee Press.

[spaghetttti]

Have you tried increasing the coffee and condensed milk amounts slightly?

If that doesn't work you could try Longevity brand condensed milk. Another shopper in a Vietnamese market here recommended it to me as the one that Vietnamese-born people in the US prefer because it has a long history in Vietnam. I have been using Trung Nguyen coffee from Vietnam, but most of the Pho shops here use Cafe du Monde or Goya coffee. I have not used it, but a good espresso bean is likely to be better yet.

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The owner of an Asian grocery store let me in on a secret employed by several pho shops in this area when preparing cafe sua da/nong: they blend 2 parts Cafe du Monde to one part Trung Nguyen (brown box) and use Longevity brand condensed milk.

[BonVivant]

Trung Nguyen is gooooooood! however i brought back 4kg of superior beans bought from a wholesaler in Ha Noi. thanks be to my guesthouse owner who drove me and my partner on her Honda to the merchant's house the night before we flew home. have been drinking it sparingly for 6 months now using my 2 drippers. everytime we ordered 2 or 3 cups black coffee each they kept coming back to ask if we made a mistake. also because we didn't want any of that revolting condensed milk that made them scratch their heads at the same time