Traditional café
Cà Phê Muối, Đặng Thái Thân
By the Citadel (Kinh thành)
The second salt-coffee shop of the couple credited with cà phê muối, in a garden off Đặng Thái Thân near the Imperial City walls in Huế.
- Salt coffee
Traditional café · Huế
Cà Phê Muối, Nguyễn Lương Bằng
Where salt coffee is said to have started, a small shop south of the Perfume River.
Why it matters
Cà phê muối, salt coffee, is phin coffee dripped onto condensed milk with a salted cream on top. The couple who run this shop, Hồ Thị Thanh Hương and Trần Nguyễn Hữu Phong, are commonly credited with creating it, and this was their first shop.
When it opened depends on which interview you read. The owners told CNN in 2024 that it was 2010; a 2025 interview in the provincial paper Huế Ngày Nay quotes Mr Phong as saying 2014. We give neither as settled.
Finding it
10 Nguyễn Lương Bằng, south of the Perfume River. VnExpress describes it as a casual, cheap shop. We have not been, and we have no 2025 or 2026 report confirming it is still open, so check before you go. The owners’ second shop, by the Citadel, is on Đặng Thái Thân.
What to order
Salt coffee, hot or iced. The owners told CNN they prefer it iced.
More in Huế
Traditional café
Chiều
By the Citadel (Kinh thành)
Chiều (‘Afternoon’) is a café in a two-storey wooden house at 44 Đặng Thái Thân near Huế's Citadel, a local favourite for over 30 years, per VnExpress.
- Salt coffee
Related reading
Where these details came from
Show the 4 sourcesHide the sources
Figures on this page come from the following. Where a claim is an estimate or a common description rather than a measurement, the text says so.
- Salty cream in your morning brew? Why Vietnam's specialty coffees are catching on around the worldCNN Travel (Maggie Hiufu Wong), read in the CNN Newsource syndicated copy · 2024-06-27 · accessed 2026-11-04The owners, Hồ Thị Thanh Hương and Trần Nguyễn Hữu Phong, saying they created salt coffee in 2010 when they opened this shop at 10 Nguyễn Lương Bằng, and that they now have a second shop.
- Salted coffee: A Hue specialtyVnExpress International · 2023-01-02 · accessed 2026-11-04The 2010 start on Nguyễn Lương Bằng; coffee dripped through a phin; the owners declining offers to open branches outside Huế.
- Salted coffee brings the world to HueHuế Ngày Nay · 2025-02-10 · accessed 2026-11-04A second account from the owner giving 2014, not 2010, as the year the first shop opened.
- Cà phê muối xứ HuếVnExpress (Ngân Dương) · 2020-09-03 · accessed 2026-11-04The build: condensed milk below, a salted fermented cream on top, phin coffee; the Nguyễn Lương Bằng shop described as casual and inexpensive.