Last week, in need of a mid-afternoon jolt, I wandered over to Union Market to get a cup of coffee. But when walking by the frozen dessert section, I spotted something way better: Vietnamese coffee ice cream.
Phin and Phebes is a small-batch ice cream company that originated in Brooklyn. Jess Eddy and Crista Freeman started the company a little over three years ago, testing new ice cream flavors in their home kitchen. Now the ice cream is made upstate, using milk sourced from a dairy cooperative of family-run farms in Lewis and Jefferson Counties. Oh, and the hand-drawn packaging is pretty great too. What's not to love?
I instantly became a fan of the Vietnamese Iced Coffee flavor. It's rich, smooth, and faintly bitter with chicory notes. And it's strong. About two scoops in, I already felt like I had just washed down a medium coffee.
Maybe there's a way to incorporate ice cream into weekday breakfast...