Walk through the old quarter of Hanoi in the early morning and you’ll catch the scent before you see it: rich coffee drifting from narrow shophouses, the sound of whisks beating furiously against metal bowls, and the sight of tiny glasses topped with a frothy golden crown. This is cà phê trứng—Vietnam’s egg coffee—one of the country’s most beloved culinary inventions. Its story, and that of Vietnam’s long-standing love affair with condensed milk, is a tale of necessity, creativity, and cultural resilience.
A Country Without Refrigerators
To understand how these foods came to be, you must picture Vietnam in the mid-20th century. Before widespread electrification, refrigeration was rare, especially outside major cities. Even in Hanoi and Saigon, many families relied on ice blocks delivered daily to keep perishables cool, and those ice blocks melted fast in the tropical heat.
Fresh milk was particularly difficult to store. Dairy farming was not a traditional Vietnamese practice, and the infrastructure to collect, pasteurize, and deliver milk fresh didn’t exist in the way it did in Europe or North America. Eggs, too, spoiled quickly in the humidity without proper storage. For cooks, this meant looking for ways to work around the problem.
Enter the Tin Can
Condensed milk first arrived in Vietnam during the French colonial era in the late 19th century. The French brought their taste for café au lait, but fresh milk was nearly impossible to supply consistently. The solution came from Europe’s industrial innovation: canned, sweetened condensed milk. With its long shelf life and dense, creamy sweetness, it became the perfect stand-in for fresh dairy.
Brands like Longevity (Ông Thọ) became fixtures in Vietnamese kitchens. A spoonful could transform bitter, dark Vietnamese coffee into a silky, caramel-sweet drink. It also became a go-to ingredient for baking, desserts, and even savory dishes when fresh cream was unavailable. The habit stuck, long after refrigeration became common.
The Birth of Egg Coffee
If condensed milk solved one problem, egg coffee solved another. The drink was invented in Hanoi in 1946 by a man named Nguyễn Văn Giảng, a bartender at the city’s Metropole Hotel. At the time, milk shortages were common due to the First Indochina War. Giảng had seen European coffee drinks made with cream, but cream was nowhere to be found. So, he did what inventive cooks across Vietnam were already doing—he improvised.
He whisked egg yolks with sugar and a splash of condensed milk, creating a thick, custard-like foam. Then he poured it over strong, dark coffee. The result was unlike anything else: rich and velvety, with the bitterness of the coffee softened by the airy sweetness of the topping. It wasn’t a substitute anymore—it was a whole new drink.
A Broader Pattern of Culinary Ingenuity
Egg coffee wasn’t an isolated example. Across Vietnam, home cooks and street vendors developed ways to extend shelf life, preserve freshness, and adapt ingredients to the climate.
- Pickling and fermenting: From pickled mustard greens (dưa muối) to fermented shrimp paste (mắm tôm), these techniques kept food edible and flavorful for weeks.
- Coconut milk: In the South, coconut milk stepped in where dairy couldn’t, adding richness to curries, desserts, and even iced coffee variations.
- Sun-drying: Fish, squid, and fruits were dried to preserve them for transport and storage.
- Layered sweetness: Desserts often relied on beans, glutinous rice, and syrups rather than cream or butter.
This pattern wasn’t just about survival—it was about shaping a distinctive culinary identity that balanced foreign influence with local resources.
Condensed Milk: From Colonial Relic to National Comfort
While it may have arrived as a colonial import, condensed milk became Vietnamese in the way baguettes became bánh mì: transformed by local tastes. The classic Vietnamese iced coffee (cà phê sữa đá) pairs robust, slow-dripped coffee with a generous pour of condensed milk, stirred over ice. The contrast of intense bitterness and syrupy sweetness is addictive, and it’s as much a part of morning life as the motorbike commute.
In rural areas, condensed milk also became a status symbol—proof that a family could afford imported goods. Children grew up dipping bread into it for breakfast or drizzling it over shaved ice desserts.
Today, brands still market it not just as an ingredient, but as a nostalgic link to childhood. Supermarket shelves in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City still dedicate entire aisles to tins and squeeze bottles of it.
Egg Coffee as a Cultural Icon
Back in Hanoi, the Giảng family café still serves its famous egg coffee, drawing tourists and locals alike. The drink has evolved—now you can find variations with cocoa, green tea, even matcha—but the core idea remains the same. Served in small cups nestled in a bowl of warm water to maintain temperature, egg coffee is both a drink and a dessert, a conversation starter and a time capsule.
In recent years, Vietnamese egg coffee has traveled the world, appearing in specialty coffee shops from Melbourne to New York. But in Hanoi, it remains an intimate pleasure best enjoyed in a narrow, dimly lit café, surrounded by the buzz of scooters outside.
Why These Adaptations Endured
What’s striking about both condensed milk coffee and egg coffee is that they were born out of constraint but endured out of love. They solved practical problems in a tropical climate with limited infrastructure, but they also created flavors and textures that became irreplaceable.
Even now, when fresh milk and cream are widely available in Vietnam, people choose condensed milk because it tastes like home. They order egg coffee not because they can’t get cream, but because no cream can replicate its sweet, custardy foam.
It’s a reminder that culinary traditions aren’t just preserved in spite of change—they’re often created because of it.
The Legacy of Adaptation
Vietnam’s approach to these storage challenges mirrors its broader history: a willingness to adapt, blend influences, and make something new that feels timeless. Whether it’s French-style bread transformed into bánh mì, Chinese noodles reimagined as phở, or a shortage of cream leading to the world’s first egg coffee, the through-line is creativity in the face of limitation.
And that creativity doesn’t stop. Modern Vietnamese chefs are still experimenting—condensed milk is turning up in ice creams, pastries, and even savory sauces. Egg coffee is being made with plant-based milks, flavored syrups, and artisanal single-origin beans.
But at its heart, the story is still the same: faced with an obstacle, the Vietnamese kitchen doesn’t stop—it innovates.
If you sit in a Hanoi café, watching the thick coffee drip slowly through a phin filter into a pool of sweet, golden condensed milk, or see a bartender whip egg yolks into a froth over steaming coffee, you’re witnessing more than just a drink being made. You’re seeing history in a cup—a history that began with scarcity, found its solution in entrepreneurial ingenuity, and ended with a tradition so beloved it will likely never fade.
