Cambodian iced coffee (kafe tuk doh ko)

Local names

Khmer

កាហ្វេទឹកដោះគោkafe tuk doh koka-FAY took doh KOH'Coffee with milk' — literally coffee with cow's water. Romanisation varies widely and no single form is standard.

Khmer

កាហ្វេkafeka-FAYCoffee, from the French café — the vocabulary arrived with the colonial administration even though the practice did not.

Khmer

ទឹកកកtuk kokIce, which is not optional in the usual form of this drink.

What it is

The Cambodian cup is decided at the roaster, not the brewer, and that is what separates it from every other condensed-milk iced coffee in Southeast Asia. Robusta beans are roasted very dark with additions: vegetable fat or butter, soybeans, corn, and often chicory. Older accounts describe animal fat and alcohol in the roast as well. The fat is the unusual part — it coats the bean, darkens the roast and carries into the cup as a weight and a gloss that the ingredient list does not predict.

The brewing is either a phin, the same metal drip filter Vietnam uses, or a cloth sock. Either way the coffee lands on two or three spoons of sweetened condensed milk already sitting in the glass, and is stirred and poured over ice. What arrives is close to black, extremely sweet and thicker than its dilution suggests.

The service is worth recording because it is genuinely characteristic and because it is the part visitors remember: from a street stall the finished drink goes into a clear plastic bag, tied at the neck with a rubber band around a straw, and is carried away hanging from a finger. CoffeeHQ notes the practice as description rather than recommendation — single-use plastic is what the trade actually uses, and pretending otherwise would misdescribe it.

What makes it distinct: Fat roasted into the beans — the only record in this atlas where a lipid is part of the roast rather than added to the cup.

Cultural context

A working drink bought on the way somewhere, from a stall or a market, most often in the morning. It sits alongside a French-descended café culture in the cities and a much older tea culture, and it is the cheapest of the three. Cambodia grows very little coffee; almost all of this is imported robusta, which is a different relationship to the crop than Vietnam or Laos has.

Vessel and equipment

A phin in most descriptions, a cloth sock filter in others, and both are used. Neither is Cambodian in origin — the phin is Vietnamese and the sock is the regional cloth-filter family — which is why this record is filed on the roast rather than on the vessel.

Brewed in

• Phin filter
• Cloth coffee filter

How it is made

Water passes down through a grounds bed held by perforated metal.

Water boiled separately and poured over. The heat does nothing distinctive; the roast does.

1. Roast robusta very dark with vegetable fat or butter, soybeans, corn and often chicory, then grind while still warm. (about 20 minutes)
2. Put two or three teaspoons of sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of a tall glass.
3. Set the phin or the cloth filter over the glass, add the grounds, and pour hot water through. (about 5 minutes)
4. Stir the coffee through the condensed milk until fully combined.
5. Pour over a full glass of ice, or into a plastic bag of ice tied around a straw if it is being carried away.

Sugar

Sweetened entirely by the condensed milk, which is doing both jobs. Additional sugar is unusual.

Milk

Sweetened condensed milk, in the glass before the coffee. Fresh milk is not part of the traditional form and is a modern café substitution.

Additions

Sweetened condensed milk; Ice; Vegetable fat or butter, in the roast; Soybeans and corn, in the roast; Chicory, in the roast

How it is served

A tall glass packed with ice, or a knotted plastic bag with a straw through the neck, drunk on the move.

Served with: Nom pang pâté (baguette sandwiches), Fried noodles at market stalls

When: Morning above all, and through the heat of the afternoon.

Taste

Tendencies of the preparation, not a prediction about any particular cup.

Body

High

Clarity

Medium

Sediment in the cup

Low

Perceived strength

Medium-high

Bitterness tendency

Medium-high

Acidity tendency

Low

Sweetness tendency

High

Caffeine

A large, cold, sweet glass built on a small, concentrated extraction. The total is moderate and pulls in two directions that partly cancel: the coffee is robusta, at roughly twice arabica's caffeine per gram, but soybean, corn and chicory occupy a share of every spoonful and contribute none. Which effect wins depends on a blend proportion that is commercial and unpublished, so no figure follows.

CoffeeHQ states no milligram figure for this preparation, because no measurement specific to it has been established. Inventing one would be easy and wrong.

What moves the number

• The proportion of coffee to soybean, corn and chicory in the roast, which is not standardised
• Robusta rather than arabica, which roughly doubles caffeine per gram of actual coffee
• How much the ice has melted, which changes concentration and not total

The fat in the roast contributes nothing to caffeine. It changes texture and perceived strength, which is a different thing and is the reason this drink tastes stronger than its dose.

How CoffeeHQ estimates caffeine

How it differs from

Vietnamese phin coffee

The same filter, a different bean going into it. Vietnamese phin coffee is robusta roasted alone, sometimes with butter applied at the end of the roast; the Cambodian version roasts fat, soybean, corn and chicory into the batch as a matter of course, so a meaningful share of every spoonful is not coffee.

Thai oliang

Two compound-roast iced coffees from neighbouring countries, arrived at separately. Oliang adds corn, soybean and sesame and is filtered through cloth and served black over ice; the Cambodian drink adds fat and is built on condensed milk. The shared idea is stretching expensive coffee with cheap roasted grain; the results are not alike.

Tunisian qahwa arbi

Opposite ends of the world, same structural idea: roast something that is not coffee together with the coffee, and treat the result as one ingredient. Tunisia uses chickpeas and citrus peel and boils the result; Cambodia uses soybean, corn and fat and drips it.

In practice

Common mistakes

• Using a light or medium roast, which produces something thin and sour under the condensed milk
• Adding the condensed milk after the coffee, which leaves it sitting at the bottom
• Treating it as Vietnamese coffee. The vessel is often shared and the roast is not.
• Expecting a fresh-milk drink; the condensed milk is structural, not a substitution

Household and regional variation

Mostly bought rather than made, so the variation is between roasters. What goes into the roast alongside the coffee — how much fat, whether soybean or corn leads, whether chicory is present — differs by supplier and is a trade secret rather than a recipe.

Modern adaptations

Phnom Penh's specialty cafés now serve Cambodian-grown arabica through modern brewers, which is a genuinely different product and is not this. Reusable cups are displacing the plastic bag unevenly.

Misconceptions

• That this is Vietnamese coffee under another name. Both use a phin and condensed milk; only one roasts fat, soybean and corn into the beans.
• That the butter or fat is added to the finished drink. It goes into the roast, which is why it reads as texture rather than as a slick on the surface.
• That Cambodia is a coffee-growing country in the way its neighbours are. Production is small and recent; this tradition was built on imported beans.

Related preparations

• Vietnamese phin coffee
• Thai oliang
• Nanyang kopi (Malaysian and Singaporean kopitiam coffee)
• Tunisian qahwa arbi

Elsewhere on CoffeeHQ

• Vietnamese phin brewing

History, culture and background

• South and Southeast Asian coffee traditions

Related in the catalogue

• Thai oliang
• Vietnamese phin coffee

Compare

• Cambodian iced coffee vs Thai oliang