Hanoi's Old Quarter Coffee: Egg, Coconut and Street Cafés

At seven in the morning on a corner of Hanoi's Old Quarter, a woman sets out twenty plastic stools no higher than your knee, lights a burner and starts dripping coffee through a row of small aluminium filters. By half past, every stool is taken. Office workers, students and old men with newspapers sit facing the street, watching the motorbikes and taking their time. Hanoi coffee culture is not about a drink you take away. It is about sitting down, and that is where any visit to the Old Quarter should begin.

How Vietnamese coffee works

Coffee arrived with the French in the 1800s, and Vietnam is now one of the world's largest coffee producers, growing mostly robusta in the Central Highlands. Robusta is stronger and more bitter than arabica, with more caffeine, and Hanoi likes it dark and roasted hard.

The classic way to make it is the phin, a small metal filter that sits on top of the cup. Hot water drips through slowly, which means you wait, which is the point. Order cà phê đen for black, cà phê sữa for coffee with sweetened condensed milk, and add đá for ice. Bạc xỉu is mostly milk with a little coffee, a good start if you find the strong stuff too much.

Egg coffee, and where it began

Hanoi's famous drink sounds strange and tastes like dessert. Cà phê trứng, egg coffee, is strong coffee topped with a thick cream made by whisking egg yolks with sugar and condensed milk until pale and airy. You eat the top with a spoon, then drink the coffee underneath. It is usually served in a small bowl of hot water to keep it warm.

The story goes that it was invented in the 1940s by Nguyễn Văn Giảng, a bartender at the Metropole hotel, at a time when fresh milk was scarce. He later opened his own café, and Café Giảng on Nguyễn Hữu Huân street is still run by his family. You walk down a narrow passage and up the stairs to a low, crowded room. It is not glamorous. It does not need to be.

For a view with your egg coffee, Café Đinh sits up a dark staircase, above a shop on Đinh Tiên Hoàng street on the edge of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. It is also family-run, and the window seats look over the traffic and the water.

In Hanoi, the coffee is strong and the stools are small, and nobody is in a hurry.

Coconut coffee, salt coffee and the rest

Cà phê cốt dừa, coconut coffee, is the best answer to a hot afternoon: strong coffee poured over a blended slush of coconut milk, condensed milk and ice. It is closer to a milkshake than a coffee, and it is wonderful. You will find it all over the city, including at Cộng Cà Phê, a chain decorated in army green with a nostalgic, retro look.

Salt coffee, originally from Huế, has arrived in Hanoi too, with a lightly salted cream on top that sharpens the sweetness. Some places also do yoghurt coffee. Try them for curiosity. Come back to egg and coconut for love.

Sidewalk cafés and how to sit in them

The real Hanoi coffee experience is on the pavement. Find a stall where the stools face the street and plenty of locals are sitting. Sit down, and someone will come to you. Point at what the person next to you has if you are unsure. Iced green tea, trà đá, often comes free or for very little alongside. Pay when you leave.

Cà Phê Lâm, on Nguyễn Hữu Huân, is a good place to see the older style. It has been open for decades, and its walls are covered with paintings that, the story goes, struggling artists once left in exchange for coffee.

Walking the Old Quarter between cups

The Old Quarter is a grid of short, packed streets north of Hoàn Kiếm Lake, many of them named for the trades once practised on them. Hàng means goods or merchandise, so Hàng Bạc was the silver street, Hàng Gai the street of hemp and silk, and Hàng Mã still sells paper offerings and lanterns, which glow red and gold around the Mid-Autumn Festival. Walk without a plan and look up, at the narrow tube houses, the shuttered balconies and the knotted wires.

Loop back to Hoàn Kiếm Lake. Cross the red Thê Húc bridge to Ngọc Sơn Temple on its little island. On weekend evenings the streets around the lake close to traffic and fill with families, street music and children's games.

The narrow "train street" where trains pass between houses became famous on social media, and the authorities have repeatedly restricted cafés and visitors there for safety. Check the current situation before you go, and follow any police instructions.

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Good to know

• Cross the road slowly and steadily. Motorbikes will flow around you if you are predictable. Do not run or stop suddenly.
• Coffee is strong. One cup of robusta can feel like two at home.
• Carry small notes in Vietnamese đồng. Street cafés rarely take cards.
• The best time to visit is autumn, roughly September to November. Summer is hot and wet, and winter can be cool and grey.
• Mornings and early evenings are when the pavement cafés are at their liveliest.

Spend a few days in the Old Quarter and you will have your café, your stool and your order. By the last morning, the woman with the burner may nod as you sit down. That small nod is the best souvenir Hanoi gives.