I've always wanted to try Vietnamese egg coffee, which is like an egg cream latte, and was excited to find a place that combines egg cream with hojicha latte instead. This is a Vietnamese coffee specialist located in a publicly subsidised food centre in Singapore (Amoy Street Food Centre), called Life Coffee. Because of its relatively low rental, the prices here are normally cheaper, so where proper cafes might charge S$7-9 for such a drink, I got it for S$3.80. Still steep for a non-airconditioned stall, but it is great for trying a range of different flavours. Besides Egg Cream Hojicha Latte, they also had other interesting toppings such as salted egg foam, which I hope to try on another visit.
This drink is essentially an iced hojicha latte topped with the creamy custard-like egg topping normally used for Vietnamese egg coffee.
What I really loved was how the egg cream was done. I was concerned that it might be overly sweet, but to my delight, it was perfectly done. Condensed milk is supposedly blended with egg yolks for this, but surprisingly, it wasn't too sweet. It reminded me of a super thick egg nog, but without the spice or cloying sweetness of the commercial Western formulas you get in the supermarket, such as Paul's. You could also think of it like a more liquefied custard cream without the vanilla notes. The egg notes came through strongly and satisfyingly.
Despite the egg cream not being as sweet as a commercial egg nog, it still had some sugar inside, so with my request of no additional sugar for my hojicha latte, the overall sugar level was just right. Perhaps about a 1-2% level if you go by grams per 100ml.
The hojicha was satisfyingly dark, nutty and earthy with pleasant notes of cocoa and aromatic mellow oolong-esque fragrance. It was closer to a thick powdered hojicha latte, similar to a matcha latte, not the smokey type of hojicha that is brewed from leaves.
Overall, the egg flavour blended nicely into the hojicha and milk to make it much more balanced, rounding out the earth and nutty flavours with the buttery and rich egg notes. The contribution of the egg cream was relatively subtle and not distinctly noticeable, but when compared with a normal hojicha dairy milk latte, it was much fuller, richer and more buttery. Kind of like a hojicha milk shake or rich hojicha ice cream without all the excess sugar. You can see that the overall look with the egg cream mixed in does look like a hojicha milkshake in the photo below.
I think this is a winning combination, and on my next visit hope to try more drinks with egg and salted egg creams.
Finally, this is a photo of the storefront for reference.
Discover other Vietnamese, hojicha- or egg-inspired treats
- Shirocha Latte by Hvala, also known as Shiro Matcha Latte
- Eggnog Chai Tea Latte
- Purple Sweet Potato Taro Egg Tart, Macau Portuguese style, by Zok Noodle House
- Signature Mentai Tartar by Hakata Mentai Yamaya Kitchen
- Luckin Coffee's Daifuku - Salted Egg Yolk and other flavours
- Vietnamese Roasted Cashews
- Vietnamese Lotus Tea by Comnam Broken Rice Bowl
- Hojicha Biscoff Castella by Muji Cafe
- Eggnog Spiced Apricot and Chestnut Marron Spiced Chantilly
- Hojicha KitKat
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