Cafe Sua Da

Cafe Sua Da always makes me reminisce on times living in Orange County, CA, and visiting my best friend’s dad’s noodle shop in Westminster. Mi La Cay is located in a small strip mall off Bolsa Ave. and the beauty of this spot is that right next door to the restaurant had the thickest, richest, darkest, sweetest, greatest…cafe sua da. You’d take a few sips of this stuff and you’d get jitters for at least 30 minutes and that’s how coffee should be, otherwise, what is the fuckin point? We’d stand outside the restaurant for hours and talk about life, business, school, traveling, and anything else that came to mind while sipping our coffee….so, in many ways, a good Cafe Sua Da helps me recall the countless lessons I learned listening to the stories of my friend’s dad, the REAL OG.

About 6 months into being Vegan, I realized that I’ve been holding back from making Vietnamese Iced Coffee, because of the condensed milk. Then it dawned on me that I could just add some sugar (agave) to a reduced coconut creamer to replace the condensed milk! Why didn’t I think of this before?

Everything that a great Cafe Sua Da is composed of can all be done in a plant-based world! All you need is your classic Cafe Du Monde orange tin can, cocounut creamer, and some light agave.

And while the traditional iced coffee is made with a tiny slow dripper sitting over condensed milk, already in the cup, we’ll be using an Aero Press to extract all the flavors of this coffee and pour the creamer in at the end.

I really can’t live without my Aero Press coffee and I’d recommend this thing to any coffee fiend alive. While it can only do one cup of coffee at a time, the result is absolutely worth every drop. I could go on and on about an Aero Press, but I’ll save that for a later post.

Let’s focus on the cream. I tend to start with more creamer, and reduce it down about 30%. I find that the thicker I can make it, the better the iced coffee feels. I almost wish it were like drinking melted coffee ice cream.

You can find a coconut creamer at Trader Joe’s for convenience, but there are other brands that make for richer coconut tastes like So Delicious’s version.  Once you get the coffee down and creamer’s ready to rock, pour it in and let everything sit until room temperature. When coffee is completely cooled, throw in the ice and enjoy a great conversation with the folks you love to learn the most from!