Recipe
Bạc xỉu
Vietnamese milk coffee, milk-forward
Roughly: bak SYOO
Not a weak coffee. A milk drink with coffee in it, invented for people who wanted the café without the caffeine hit.
What you need
Equipment
- A phin, 120 ml
- A tall glass
- A long spoon
Ingredients
- Dark-roast Vietnamese robusta, medium-coarse12 gabout 2 tbsp
Deliberately a small dose. This is the point of the drink.
- Water, just off the boil60 ml4 tbsp
- Sweetened condensed milk40 ml2½ tbsp
- Fresh or evaporated milk, warm80 ml⅓ cup
- Icea full glass
Method
- 1
Condensed milk and fresh milk together
Stir the condensed milk and the warm fresh milk together in the glass until completely combined. Doing this first, before any coffee, is what gives bạc xỉu its even pale colour.
Look for: A uniform creamy off-white with no streaks.
- 2
Brew a small phin
Twelve grams, bloom with 12 ml, then the remaining water. A smaller dose drips faster, so expect three to four minutes rather than five.
Look for: About 45–50 ml of dark coffee.
- 3
Pour the coffee over the back of a spoon
If you want the layered look cafés serve, pour slowly over the back of a spoon held just above the milk. It will float as a darker cap for a minute or two.
Look for: A distinct dark layer sitting on pale milk.
- 4
Ice, then stir
Add ice and stir. The finished drink should be the colour of milky tea, noticeably paler than cà phê sữa đá.
Look for: Pale caramel, almost beige.
If it goes wrong
| What happened | Why | What to change |
|---|---|---|
| It tastes like coffee, not like bạc xỉu. | Too much coffee for the milk. | The ratio is roughly 1 part coffee to 2½ parts milk. Drop to 10 g of coffee. |
| It is cloyingly sweet. | Condensed milk plus sweetened fresh milk. | Use unsweetened fresh or evaporated milk, and cut the condensed milk to 30 ml. |
The short version
Stir condensed milk and warm fresh milk together in the glass. Brew a small 12 g phin over the top. Add ice, stir, drink.
It is not weak coffee
This is the thing most visitors get wrong. Bạc xỉu is not a watered-down cà phê sữa đá — it is its own drink with its own proportions, and the extra fresh milk changes the texture as much as the ratio changes the strength.
The result is closer to a cold, sweet, coffee-flavoured milk than to coffee. In Saigon it is what a great many people drink at eight in the morning, and what children are given the almost-coffee version of.
Where it comes from
The name comes from the Chinese-Vietnamese communities of Chợ Lớn, Saigon’s historic Chinese quarter, and it is still much more common in the south than the north. Ask for it in Hanoi and you will get it, but it is a southern drink by origin.
Substitutions
| Instead of | Use | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh milk | Evaporated milk | Closer to how it is often made in Vietnam — richer, and it holds up better against ice. |
| Dairy | Oat milk plus oat condensed milk | Works well. Oat's natural sweetness means you can cut the condensed milk further. |
Questions people ask
- What does bạc xỉu mean?
- It is a shortening of a Cantonese phrase along the lines of 'white with a little coffee', reflecting the Chinese-Vietnamese communities of Chợ Lớn in Saigon where the drink is generally said to have originated. The full form is sometimes written bạc tẩy xỉu phé.
- What is the difference between bạc xỉu and cà phê sữa đá?
- Proportion. Cà phê sữa đá is coffee with milk added; bạc xỉu is milk with coffee added, and it usually includes fresh or evaporated milk alongside the condensed milk. Bạc xỉu is noticeably paler and milder.
- Is bạc xỉu the same as a latte?
- Similar in spirit, different in construction. A latte is espresso and steamed milk; bạc xỉu is phin coffee with condensed milk and unsteamed fresh milk, and it is sweet by default.
