Oliang (Thai Iced Coffee)

Oliang is Thailand’s iced coffee, and it isn’t quite like any other. The coffee, usually robusta, is roasted together with grains and seeds, typically corn and soybeans, often rice and sesame, and brewed by pouring boiling water through a cloth coffee sock. It’s sweetened, poured over crushed ice, and drunk black. The roasted grains give it a smoky, toasty aroma that, Lion Brand says, plain robusta can’t imitate. Here’s what’s in it, how to make it, and how it differs from Thai coffee with milk.

The short version

• Robusta roasted with corn, soybeans and other grains.
• Brewed in a cloth sock (tungdtom), poured through more than once.
• Sweetened and poured over crushed ice, drunk black.
• “Black and iced”: the name is Teochew Chinese.
• With milk it becomes oliang yok lor or kafae yen.

What’s in oliang?

Oliang mix: coffee roasted with other ingredients. The sources agree on the main ones:

Ingredient	Source
Robusta coffee	Lion Brand; Wikipedia
Brown sugar	Lion Brand; Wikipedia
Corn and soybeans, “the two other major components”	Lion Brand
Rice and sesame seeds	Lion Brand; Wikipedia
Cardamom	Wikipedia
Sesame and corn	Thai Food Online

There is no fixed formula. Lion Brand notes that the coffee content printed on oliang packets ranges from 20% to 80%, and the grains and seeds vary a lot. You buy the mix ready-made: Thai Food Online says it already contains the sesame and corn.

How do you make oliang?

Thai Food Online’s street-vendor method:

1. Put 2 tablespoons of oliang mix in a cloth coffee sock over a pan or wide cup.
2. Pour about 10 oz (300 ml) of boiling water through it, lift the sock and let it drain.
3. Pour the coffee back through into a second pan, then once more, three times in all.
4. Sweeten: 2–3 tablespoons of sugar in a glass, then the hot coffee; stir well.
5. Pour over a big mug of crushed ice.

Wikipedia describes a slower version: pour boiling water through the sock into a carafe and let the bag steep for about 10 minutes until strong. The sock, a tungdtom, is a cotton bag on a metal ring with a handle, used for Thai tea too. For more on cloth-filter brewing, see our kopi sock guide and the cloth filter chapter.

Black or with milk?

Strictly, oliang is black: the name comes from Teochew Chinese 烏涼, “black and iced”, Wikipedia says. Thai cafés offer milky versions under other names:

Order	What you get (Wikipedia)
Oliang	Black iced coffee, sweetened
Oliang yok lor	Black coffee with ice and fresh milk
Kafae yen	Black coffee with condensed milk, ice and fresh milk

Wikipedia adds that oliang is sometimes served with condensed milk, or a small jug of evaporated milk, on the side.

Where does oliang come from?

Thailand, through its Chinese community: the Teochew majority of Thai Chinese gave it its name, Lion Brand and Wikipedia say. Lion Brand traces the grains to the First World War, when coffee was expensive and cheap grains were added in the roaster to make it go further; the cheap, tasty result stuck. In 2009, the Christian Science Monitor visited “Grandpa” Lee Sata in Chachoengsao, who had been brewing coffee through sock filters in the same shop since 1937. He sold oliang the street way: coffee, corn and soybeans, “liberally sweetened before being poured into a plastic bag of shaved ice to be slurped with a straw on the go”.

Oliang vs other iced coffees

• Greek frappé: instant coffee shaken into a foam over ice.
• Mazagran: cold coffee with lemon, from Algeria via Portugal.
• Kopi tarik: Malaysia’s sock coffee, “pulled” with milk.
• Café bombón: espresso with condensed milk, from Valencia.

Explore every drink in the iced and blended chapter.