A watercolour of a glass of dark coffee with a thick pale ribbon of condensed milk sinking through it
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Vietnamese ca phe sua da

Coffee with condensed milk

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 12 months, set by Instant coffee.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
1
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.2 L
Active
3 min
Total
5 min

Ingredients

The best use of a tin of condensed milk, and the reason to carry one.

The milk goes in first and stays at the bottom. Do not stir it in. Pour the coffee gently over the back of a spoon and you get a drink that starts bitter at the top and turns to caramel as you go down, which is the whole idea.

  1. Condensed milk into the bottom of a mug. About two heaped teaspoons.
  2. Coffee made at roughly double your usual strength with 150 ml of water.
  3. Poured slowly over the back of a spoon.
  4. Stir only when you are halfway down, if at all.

No sugar. Condensed milk is about 55 per cent sugar and adding more makes it undrinkable rather than sweeter.

Excellent cold if you have anything to chill it with, which on a trip you usually do not.

Serves 1.

What this was adapted from

Vietnamese ca phe sua da: strong dark coffee poured over sweetened condensed milk

  • coffee dripped through a phin filter → instant coffee made deliberately strong

    The phin gives a thick, slow-brewed coffee that stands up to the milk. Instant does not, so it goes in at roughly double strength. What is lost is body; what survives is the point of the drink, which is the contrast between bitter and very sweet.