Cafe Phin (aka Viet coffee drip)
I’m sitting here, having my first mug of coffee for the day. It’s a flavour I bought from San Francisco Coffee yesterday evening, called Morning Blend.
I made it with a cafe phin, which is a Vietnamese coffee drip made of stainless steel.
It looks like a small stainless steel mug, except its bottom is the filter. There’s also a filter saucer that goes between the drip and the mug the coffee goes into. Inside the drip is a separator filter to keep the water from the coffee.
I saw one of these at a coffee shop where cousin Soo, family and I stopped for a break on our way back from visiting her son in Kuala Terengganu last August (2004) . I didn’t think to get one then.
A recent issue of the “I Need Coffee” online newsletter featured a cafe phin tutorial, and that was when I thought to get one. Around the same time, I saw one on display at a shop at The Curve. I’d asked and was told they weren’t selling it then but were waiting for a shipment to come in.
Yesterday afternoon, I popped by the shop and found that stock had come in! Besides the stainless steel version I bought, the shop also had pretty ceramic versions in different colours. Being the clumsy person that I am, I settled for the unpretty (i.e., stainless steel) one.
I’ll post a picture of the cafe phin at work later on. Meanwhile, here’s the Cafe Phin Tutorial that led to my own cafe phin.
