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Since early September, TOC Gallery at 4 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, Thuan Hoa Ward, Hue City, has seen a 20% rise in customers after introducing a shrimp paste coffee.
The beverage is now its signature item, selling about 50 cups a day at VND55,000 (US$2.10) each.
Tran Ngoc Anh Tuan, 32, the cafe's co-owner, came up with the idea after wanting to infuse the character of Hue's cuisine into a drink.
Hue was already famous for its salt coffee. So when developing something new, he and his team wanted to stand out while keeping the local soul. They chose to experiment with mam ruoc, which is central to Hue cuisine.
Staff at TOC Gallery prepare shrimp paste coffee. Video courtesy of the coffee shop
Mam ruoc is made by mixing ruoc or sea shrimp with salt and leaving it to ferment in clay jars. The condiment shapes the flavor of many local dishes, including bun bo Hue (spicy beef noodle soup) and com hen (baby clam rice).
Tuan says its saltiness pairs well with coffee. A sour ingredient would spoil the creamy layer on top, he explains.
"Ruoc is a familiar seasoning in Hue kitchens, but it has never been used in drinks."
Many people dismissed the idea as absurd, but the team pressed on and perfected the recipe after six months.
The shrimp paste is cooked with caramel sugar and cream to mitigate its odor and infuse a light aroma. Each cup has four layers of flavor. At the bottom is milk blended with condensed milk, followed by coffee made from a mixture of Arabica beans grown in A Luoi, a mountainous area of Hue, and robusta. The top is a shrimp paste cream, finished with shavings of dried tuna.
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| A cup of shrimp paste coffee topped with thick cream and dried tuna flakes. Photo courtesy of TOC Gallery |
To taste each layer, Tuan advises drinkers to skip the straw. Instead, they should stir the coffee and milk below, leaving the shrimp paste cream untouched. Sipping straight from the rim lets the cream mingle with the bitterness of the coffee, leaving a fragrant aftertaste.
The name alone makes many customers curious, and, admittedly, many hesitant, when they first hear it.
Quoc Bao, 28, of Ho Chi Minh City says he was surprised that the smell of the paste was not as strong as he had imagined. The coffee remained the dominant flavor, with the saltiness lingering in the aftertaste. To Bao, it is a drink "worth trying" when visiting Hue.
Bich Ngoc, 35, a tourist from Nghe An Province, sought out the drink after seeing many people share it on social media.
"I was a bit wary at first because I never thought shrimp paste could go with coffee, but after trying it, I found it quite interesting," she says.
