Fordo journal
4 min read · September 2, 2026
Strip an es kopi susu to its parts and there are only four: a small amount of very strong coffee, milk, something sweet — usually palm sugar — and a full glass of ice. Milk and ice will dilute whatever you brew by more than half, so the coffee has to start much stronger than anything you’d drink black.
You don’t need an espresso machine for that. You need concentration, and there are three household ways to get it.
This drink needs bold body, low acidity and enough sweetness to meet the palm sugar halfway. That’s the exact brief our commercial espresso blends are roasted for.
Autumn Thunder is the one we’d hand you first — milk is its home ground, with a bold body that keeps a clear coffee backbone under milk. Second Breakfast runs sweeter and more rounded. And if you want the drink to kick, Fine Robusta brings the caffeine and the heaviest body of the three.
The moka pot gets closest to espresso at home. Fill the basket level without tamping, grind medium-fine — a touch coarser than espresso — and use hot water in the base so the coffee doesn’t cook while the pot heats.
Pull it off the stove when the flow turns pale and sputtery. You want about 60 ml of concentrate per glass; a 3-cup pot makes roughly two glasses’ worth.
No moka pot? Brew a French press at concentrate strength: 1:8 instead of the usual 1:15 — say 40g of coffee to 320 ml of water, medium grind, four minutes, then press and pour through a small strainer if you mind the silt.
It won’t have crema, but under milk and palm sugar that difference mostly disappears. The body is what survives, and a press brews plenty of it.
The build: 15–20 ml of palm-sugar syrup in the bottom, 60 ml of your concentrate, stir those two together first, then 120–150 ml of milk and ice to the top. Tasting flat? More coffee or less milk — not more sugar.
For one lazy glass, a drip bag works too: brew it short with only 90–100 ml of water so it lands strong, then pour it straight over the sweetened milk and ice.