How to Prepare Your CoffeeVietnamese Bạc Xỉu
What you need
Ingredients run from the top of the cup to the bottom; the last item is the bottom layer. Values are normalized to a true 100% stack.
- Grind
- Coarse — phin grind, between sea salt and coarse sand
- Water temperature
- Boiling water for the phin; served iced and cold, or hot in the older style
- Total time
- 6 min
Bạc xỉu is Saigon's milk-first coffee: a glass that is mostly milk, with only a little dark phin coffee poured on top. The name is a shortened Cantonese phrase, 'bạc tẩy xỉu phé', roughly 'a glass of white with a little coffee'. It comes from the Hoa, Saigon's Chinese-Vietnamese community, in the Chợ Lớn district around the 1950s and 60s, and was meant for drinkers who found the city's strong robusta too bitter. Sources agree that the older form was condensed milk alone with a splash of coffee. The version Saigon cafés pour today adds cold fresh milk, so it reads paler and lighter than cà phê sữa đá, which turns the same ingredients the other way round. It is drunk over ice, with the coffee settling slowly down into the milk.
Steps
Brew a small, strong phin of coffee
Only a little coffee goes into the glass, so it has to be concentrated. A slow phin drip of dark robusta stays strong enough to taste through two kinds of milk; a weak brew would leave the glass tasting only of sweet milk.
Spoon the condensed milk into the bottom of the glass
Condensed milk is the sweetener and the drink's original base. Putting it in first means the cold milk and the coffee land on top of it and dissolve it from above.
Add the fresh milk, then fill the glass with ice
Fresh milk is what turns the drink white and keeps it light. It also stops the glass from becoming as sweet and heavy as straight condensed milk. Ice on top of the milk keeps it cold while the coffee goes in.
Pour the coffee over the top and stir before drinking
The darker coffee settles slowly down through the pale milk, which is the drink's well-known look. Stirring mixes it into one even, gently sweet glass rather than a bitter top and a syrupy bottom.
Cup ready
Time to enjoy your Vietnamese Bạc Xỉu
Brewed the way they do it in Vietnam. What next?
Tips
- Dark-roast robusta is the traditional bean — its strength is what lets so little coffee stand up to so much milk.
- Shake or whisk the hot coffee briefly before pouring — many Saigon cafés foam it lightly so it settles on the milk as a soft brown layer.
- For the older, hot style, skip the fresh milk and ice: condensed milk thinned with a little hot water, with the coffee poured over it.
Common mistakes
- Making it with as much coffee as milk — that is cà phê sữa đá, the coffee-forward drink; bạc xỉu is defined by milk clearly outweighing the coffee.
- Leaving out the condensed milk and using fresh milk alone — the drink loses both its sweetness and the dense, rich body its condensed-milk origins give it.
- Using a light-roast or weak coffee — under this much milk it simply disappears.
Variations
Within the Vietnamese tradition, the preparation above takes these familiar shapes:
Vietnamese phin coffee
The coffee-forward glass bạc xỉu inverts: the same phin and condensed milk, with the coffee rather than the milk taking most of the glass.
FAQ
What does bạc xỉu mean?
It's a shortening of the Cantonese 'bạc tẩy xỉu phé'. Bạc is white, tẩy is the glass, xỉu means a little, and phé is coffee: 'a glass of white with a little coffee'. The name comes from the Hoa community of Saigon's Chợ Lớn district.
How is bạc xỉu different from cà phê sữa đá?
Both use phin coffee and condensed milk over ice, but in opposite proportions. Cà phê sữa đá is mostly coffee, sweetened with condensed milk. Bạc xỉu is mostly milk, with a smaller amount of coffee poured over the top, and today it usually includes fresh milk as well.
Is fresh milk traditional in bạc xỉu?
Not originally. The 1950s–60s Saigon version was condensed milk and coffee, served hot or with ice. Fresh milk came later and is now standard in Saigon cafés, which is why this recipe uses it. Leave it out for the older style.
The Atlas
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