There are coffee shops you visit for caffeine.

Then there are coffee shops where somebody at the table immediately reaches for their phone.

Phin Coffee at 1790 W. Carson Street falls firmly into the second category.

The family-run café specializes in Vietnamese phin-filtered coffee, where coffee slowly drips through the traditional metal filter used in Vietnam.

But its specialty drinks are where things become especially fun.

One of the café’s current signatures is the Coconut Matcha Cloud, with ceremonial matcha layered into coconut and served inside a real young coconut shell.

There is also a Mango Sticky Rice Matcha, combining mango, coconut foam, matcha oat milk and actual sticky rice.

Dessert lovers can go another direction with the Tiramisu Coffee Latte or Matcha-misu-style drinks topped with mascarpone-style cream.

And for something closer to tradition, the café serves cà phê sữa đá, Vietnamese iced coffee sweetened with condensed milk.

The menu also includes fruit matchas, bubble tea and add-ons such as boba, jelly and cream tops.

Phin Coffee is a good example of how Torrance’s café scene keeps moving beyond the basic latte-and-pastry formula.

Sometimes your afternoon coffee can apparently arrive in its own coconut.

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