Hi — I’m Paolo Gomez, and Phin Ratio is my site. It started as a spreadsheet next to my kettle: how much coffee for this glass, how much more for iced, how little for a bạc xỉu. Eventually the spreadsheet became the calculator, and the notes I kept alongside it became the guides.
Where the numbers come from
Every ratio on this site comes from the same place: brewing phin coffee at home, most mornings, and adjusting until the cup was right. The calculator encodes what I settled on — a roughly 1:5 brew for cà phê đen, stronger for iced drinks, gentler for bạc xỉu — along with the practical corrections you only learn by doing it, like the water the grounds absorb and the dose a 4 oz phin can actually hold. The recipe tables in the guides are generated from the calculator’s own math, so the articles and the tool can never quietly disagree with each other.
None of this is laboratory science, and I don’t pretend it is. Ratios are starting points; taste is the referee. The site’s job is to put you close enough that your second cup is dialed in.
What this site is, and isn’t
Phin Ratio covers one thing: Vietnamese phin coffee — the tool, the technique, and the classic drinks built on it. Everything here is written by me, from brewing experience plus ordinary research into the history of drinks like cà phê trứng and cà phê muối. There’s no AI-generated filler, no ghostwritten reviews, and no affiliate links dressed up as recommendations. When I recommend gear, like in the phin buying guide, it’s an opinion, not a paid placement.
If I get something wrong — a historical detail, a translation, a ratio you think is off — I genuinely want to hear about it. Corrections make the site better, and they usually come from readers who know a café or a grandmother’s recipe I don’t. Here’s how to reach me.
How the site is funded
Phin Ratio is free and I intend to keep it that way. The site runs a small number of ads through Google AdSense, and readers occasionally buy me a coffee through Ko-fi — together those cover hosting and beans. The privacy policy explains exactly what those services do in your browser, in plain language.