Lily coffee, tea & bread

The phin is the tell: a small metal filter set over the glass, dripping coffee onto condensed milk while you wait. Lily coffee, tea & bread runs that Vietnamese counter ritual across two Augusta shops, one on Laney Walker in the Medical District and one on Walton Way, with boba, fruit tea and banh mi filling out the board.

Phin coffee, and everything built on top of it

The drinks split four ways: Vietnamese coffee, milk tea, milk foam and fruit tea. The coffee side stays close to the phin filter. Coffee with Condensed Milk is organic premium coffee dripped through the phin and sweetened with condensed milk, and Black Coffee, Black Coffee with Cream and White Coffee send the same brew in different directions.

Two drinks push further than that. Coconut Ube Coffee stacks coffee and condensed milk with coconut tea, ube and grilled coconut. Egg Coffee finishes coffee and condensed milk with egg cream and a dusting of cocoa powder. Fresh Tropical Fruit Tea is the non-coffee lane, brewed tea leaves with tropical syrup, apple, mango, strawberry and cantaloupe.

Flights for people who cannot choose

Tasting flights make the range easy to work through, four five-ounce cups at a time. The Signature Coffee Flight runs Coconut Ube Coffee, Egg Coffee, Sea Salt Coffee and White Coffee with Matcha Foam. The Matcha Paradise Flight goes the other way with Matcha with Cheese Foam, Taro Matcha Latte, Raspberry Matcha Latte and Mango Matcha Latte.

The counter is quick service rather than a room to settle into, built for the daytime traffic of the Medical District around it. The owner learned to cook from her mother and came to the shop after years across food and drink, from seafood trading to chef consulting, and the menu reads like a home repertoire scaled up.

Order something savoury with the drink

The savoury side is where the shop stops being a drinks counter. Pork buns are fluffy yeast buns filled with ground pork, sausage, mushroom and egg. The Grilled Beef Meatballs Banh Mi carries house-made meatballs with pickled carrot and radish, mayonnaise and the kitchen's own sauces.

The sensible first visit is a Coconut Ube Coffee or an Egg Coffee with a banh mi, which puts both halves of the shop on one tray. Come back for a flight, which is the quickest way to learn whether you belong on the coffee side or the matcha side of the board.