A Guide To The Best Coffee In Luang Prabang
Sometimes you just need a great coffee. The Laotian city of Luang Prabang is full of craft coffee shops, roasters and artisan cafes. Join us on a cafe hopping guide to the very best coffee in Luang Prabang.
The Laotian city of Luang Prabang is a place to slow down on your travels. A city that oozes charm and a sense of relaxed elegance. The best way to sit back and soak up the ambiance is with a cup of Laotian coffee. Luckily the city is full to the brim with craft coffee roasters, small coffee shops and talented baristas.
This is our guide to where to get the best coffees in Luang Prabang.
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Saffron Coffee Luang Prabang
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Saffron Coffee, is probably the city’s most famous coffee shop. Saffron Coffee has its own roastery and Saffron coffee beans can be found in high-end cafes, hotels and shops all across Laos. The Luang Prabang Saffron Coffee sits in pride of place on the banks of the Mekong River and is the perfect spot to sit back and watch life flow by. The coffee shop itself sits on the far side of the road, with open air seating on verandas over the river's edge.
Saffron Coffee specialises in Laotian coffee, with its beans proudly sourced from within the country's borders. The whole idea for the coffee shop and roastery came about as a way of providing out of work opium farmers a new crop to replace their newly outlawed farms.
The coffee at Saffron is delicious. Serving everything from cappuccinos to lattes, iced or hot, the coffee is rich, nutty and full of flavour, it is definitely a treat!
Saffron Coffee also serves some fantastic sweet treats including a delicious, spiced carrot cake topped with a thick layer of sweet, silky smooth icing.
For those looking for air-conditioning or digital nomads looking for a comfy spot for their laptops there is also an upstairs dining room above the main shop.
DaDa Cafe
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Another Mekong riverside roastery is DaDa Cafe. DaDa offers multiple coffee beans in a range of intensities to suit even the most discerning of caffeinated palates. The coffee shop has comfy seating inside as well as a shaded riverside terrace.
We can especially recommend the iced latte. Frothy, creamy yet still full of flavour, the latte was excellent. Sometimes lattes can feel more like an ice cream or milkshake, but this had that perfect underlying rich bitterness that only really good coffee manages.
DaDa Cafe serves delicious cheesecakes, brownies and pastries. There is also a full food menu available if you want something bigger or are looking to treat yourself to breakfast.
Lum Lum / Moka Pot Street Coffee
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Despite feeling as though we had stumbled into the local Laotian youth club, Lum Lum / Moka Pot Street Coffee made one of the best iced americanos we drank in Luang Prabang.
A small black shed serves as the central hub of this tiny shop and roastery. The eponymous ‘Moka Pot' sits on a portable stove on top of the riverside wall. The whole place has a sort of “upmarket campsite” feel with foldable chairs, pallet tables and umbrellas for shade. It is very popular with the local youth, who all sit around playing mobile phone games. The locals are super lovely and polite, as soon as they realised there was no chairs for us they leapt up and offered theirs!
The staff were super friendly and despite their (very) young age really knew how to brew properly good coffee. The iced americano from Lum Lum was pure rocket fuel in the tastiest way possible. To say we were buzzing after would be an understatement!
Formula B
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We nearly walked straight past this hidden gem on Luang Prabang’s main street. Set in the heart of the Old Quarter in a colonial style building, you have to climb a set of stairs at the back of a craft shop to reach the Formula B Cafe.
Perhaps the best looking coffee shop on this list, Formula B would look right at home in the heart of New York, London or Paris. With painted brick walls, exposed wooden floorboards and an eclectic mix of furniture, Formula B is a treasure trove of caffeinated delights.
We ordered two iced lattes alongside a decadent Lotus Biscoff cookie. The lattes were perfect, the exact right mix of creamy milk and nutty dark coffee. The cookie was pure indulgence. If it wasn’t enough to be a Lotus Biscoff studded delight, the cookie also came with a gooey melted marshmallow core. Healthy, no… delicious, yes!
The best seats in the house are the bar stools next to the large sash windows overlooking the historic streets below.
Formula B sells cookies, cakes and cheesecakes alongside all your coffee favourites, cold brews and specialty coffee cocktails. They also have oat and other plant-based milk alternatives.
How good does that Biscoff cookie look!
Wabi Sabi Cafe
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If you’re looking for a cheap and cheerful caffeinated pick me up, Wabi Sabi Cafe will have you covered. This no frills cafe drew us in with its coffee grinder and espresso pot display on the street-side.
Inside there’s simple seats and decorations supplied by many travellers who have passed through Luang Prabang - currencies from around the world and messages in all languages crowd the walls.
Wabi Sabi has a simple coffee menu offering americanos, lattes and all standard variations on the theme of coffee. It also serves a small menu of food for a reasonable price.
Wabi Sabi was always popular with other travellers either sitting in or grabbing a cup to go. The coffee shop sits on the other side of Phousi Hill next to the backpacker favourite “Redbull Bar”.
Coffee Express
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Coffee Express seemed to be the informal common room for backpackers in Luang Prabang. Busy from morning to night, Coffee Express quickly became our favourite coffee shop in the whole of the city.
Coffee Express sits in a wooden building which is open on all sides and is set just on the edge of a beautiful lily pond.
The cafe has an extremely relaxed atmosphere with chilled out beats playing and plenty of seating both inside and out.
The coffee shop sells all the normal coffee’s as well as smoothies, soft drinks, beer, and cocktails. Coffee Express also serves excellent baguette sandwiches. We treated ourselves to a ham and cheese baguette alongside our standard iced lattes. Both the coffee and the crunchy baguette were brilliant.
Sometimes you just need a sarnie!
If you’re after a sweet treat, Coffee Express serves a delicious white chocolate cheesecake, which is now quite famous amongst the backpackers of Laos. They also have French pastries and brownies.
As the sun goes down in the evening, the coffee shop becomes a sort of informal bar with backpackers chatting and enjoying a bottle of Beer Laos. Coffee Express sits opposite a Taco Shop and is just up the road from another popular bar, The Fat Cat, making it a popular stopping off point on nights out in Luang Prabang.
The coffee shops listed above are just some of our favourites we tried in Luang Prabang. If we have missed your favourite coffee shop let us know in the comments below!
Thank you for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
There’s no better way to spend an afternoon in Luang Prabang than with a Mekong view, an iced latte and a slice of cake!
For more recommendations on what to eat in Luang Prabang check out our article below:
There is plenty to do other than drinking coffee in and around Luang Prabang. For all our travel guides to Luang Prabang take a look below:
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Luang Prabang is full of amazing food. From the delicious street food of the night market to the amazing breakfasts and local restaurants, we have tried it all. Check out our guide to the best food in Luang Prabang.