If you’re looking for a way to make your morning coffee a bit more exciting, try the following:
– take one egg yolk
– add two teaspoonfuls of condensed milk
– sprinkle on some sugar, according to how much of a sweet tooth you have
– whisk it like crazy until it’s as thick as meringue, although technically speaking it’s a custard
– brew up a strong espresso (I bet you’d forgotten this is a coffee recipe, which is understandable by this point…)
– pour the espresso into the bottom of a cup and top it up with the custard mix.
At first glance – at least to my first glance – this looks absolutely deranged. Who on earth puts egg in their coffee? Is this some kind of tediously absurd social media challenge for people who are trying to have the quickest breakfast? (eg. “Combine an omelet and coffee and what do you get? An OMELOFEE. Subscribe to my channel for more great tips.”)
But yet again, we encounter that great gift of travel: the seemingly bizarre foodstuff that turns out to be both logical AND delicious. And in this case, it’s a Vietnamese specialty – the kind you’ll only be able to enjoy to the full if you’re visiting Vietnam, as Wheel & Anchor is doing this coming November.
The logical side of things comes from its origins. In the mid-1940s Vietnam, milk was hard to come by. A bartender at the Hanoi’s Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel realised that whisked egg yolk could serve as a frothy milk substitute – and when he tried it, the result was both unexpectedly delicious and affordably practical.
Canadian writer Jodi Ettenberg tried it at Hanoi’s Cafe Giảng – where the son of that bartender inventor serves egg coffee to this day – and she found it was like “a Cadbury Creme Egg with a hint of mocha”. If you don’t like your coffee strong, this could be just the drink for you: the coffee’s bitterness is reduced almost to nothing, and it doesn’t taste eggy, but like vanilla-flavoured tiramisu.
Jodi did some digging and found the science behind this. Egg coffee isn’t just a Vietnam thing, as any American Midwesterner with Scandinavian roots should be able to tell you. Norwegians can brew coffee using egg to create a clear, amber-coloured drink with only a little precipitate. As chemist Martin Lersch explains here in his blog:
“The addition of proteins while preparing the coffee serves two purposes: 1) it helps the coffee grounds to flocculate, allowing them to sink faster to the bottom of the pot (this effect is probably more pronounced when using eggs) and 2) the proteins bind irreversibly to astringent and bitter tasting polyphenols in coffee to form insoluble complexes that will precipitate. The end result is a clearer coffee with a pleasant and mild taste. The bitterness is only barely noticeable, but the coffee still has enough “body” so it doesn’t feel too thin!”
(Another form of protein that does the same job: fish skin! Yes, Norwegians used to brew ‘fish coffee’. If anyone feels like trying this and reporting back, I would love to know what it’s like.)
The exact recipe used by Cafe Giảng for its egg coffee is a secret – but one of the additional ingredients is known to be cheese. If this makes you blink – well, isn’t cheese just milk in another form?
You may wish to leave your very first taste of this tasty weirdness to your time in Hanoi – and if you’re on the November tour, we’ll have a free day in the city that will do the trick perfectly. But if you’re looking for somewhere closer to home, Jodi notes that Toronto’s Coffee Dak Lak (at 3 locations across the city, including at 3379 Yonge Street) has it on the menu. From a customer review: “AMAZING EGG COFFEE! I used to be an expat in Vietnam and have not had egg coffee since 2014 when I returned to Canada. This place has replicated it to a T!”
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Join Wheel & Anchor on the 15th November for an in-depth trip covering Vietnam from south to north, from the vibrant hub of Saigon to the coastal cities of Hoi An and Hue ending up in the mystical landscape of Ninh Binh. This is the real Vietnam. Sign up for the details here.