Hanoi: Vietnamese Coffee Workshop & 6 Styles Tasting

5.00

(189 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

You know that feeling when you step off the street in Hanoi—traffic buzzing, the air thick with a kind of sweet smokiness—and suddenly you’re inside this bright little café? That’s where our Vietnamese coffee workshop started. The place smelled like roasted beans and something almost chocolatey. Our host, Linh, waved us over right away. She had this easy way about her, joking that we’d be “wired” by the end of it. I believed her after cup number three.

Linh started us off with black coffee—no sugar, no fuss—brewed in those metal phin filters that look simple but actually take some patience (my first try dripped everywhere). She told us about Robusta beans being Vietnam’s pride, and honestly, I could taste how bold it was compared to what I drink at home. Then came the famous egg coffee. I never thought raw egg yolk would make sense in coffee but it tasted like dessert—creamy and warm, almost like tiramisu if you squint. We tried coconut coffee too (icy, sweet), and salt coffee—which sounds weird but somehow just works? Linh laughed when I tried to pronounce “cà phê muối.” Pretty sure I butchered it.

There were maybe six of us around the table—people from Korea, France, me from Canada—and everyone got to brew their own cup each time. It felt less like a class and more like friends messing around in someone’s kitchen. Linh shared stories about her grandma making egg coffee during winter mornings. At one point she slipped us a tip for the best bánh mì spot nearby (which I went to after; totally worth it). By the end my hands were jittery but my head felt clearer than usual—maybe from all the laughing or maybe just caffeine overload.

We left with handwritten recipes and a tiny bag of beans as a gift. Walking back into the chaos outside, everything seemed sharper—the colors on the scooters, even the sound of someone selling fruit down the block. I still think about that first sip of egg coffee sometimes when I’m home and craving something warm and strange and comforting.