Vietnam: for that strong cup of coffee

Always like the smell of coffee, that kind of intoxicating sweetness, so that I can not resist. But every time I drink it, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. The bitterness always reminds me of the traditional Chinese medicine I drank when I was young, while the coffee with too much sugar no longer has its unique fragrance. So instant coffee has become my first choice. I don't need to taste it carefully. I just want to refresh myself.

Before going to Vietnam, a friend recommended the CAFE BAR there, saying that there was authentic French coffee there. After all, it was once a French colony and was deeply influenced by French culture. From the bottom of my heart, the illusion of coffee was awakened unconsciously, and in a trance, I seemed to smell the fragrant coffee.

On the first night in Vietnam, the guide arranged for us to stay in a hotel in Haiphong. Haiphong is one of the four major cities in Vietnam, it is said to be a big city, but it doesn't feel big, but for some reason, I like the small size of this city. When we were finally crammed into the small European elevator of the hotel, I was a little excited and finally got rid of the meaningless "guide" of the guide. When I returned to my room and washed away the tiredness of the day, the street full of "CAFE" signs began to wobble in front of me. So he took his fellow friends to the street to find the CAFE BAR in his heart. Haiphong is really small. It takes an hour to walk the main street. There are many small coffee shops along the street, there are very few people, long and thin rooms, a few plastic tables and some small plastic stools are scattered and placed in rank, as if someone had just left. Because it is summer, the ceiling fan in the house is spinning idle, while the host sits at the door and watches the people coming and going, enjoying the cool on the one hand and attracting guests on the other. It reminds me of the tea stall in the street when I was a child, a table, a few cups of tea poured. Passers-by were thirsty, so they bought a drink and chatted by the way, so that those who were in a hurry had a short rest.

By the time I came to my senses, I had been brought into a big CAFE BAR by my friends. In fact, it is not very big, but compared with the previous small coffee shops, it is like the comparison between tea stalls and teahouses. It is an open two-story BAR with the bar in the middle and you can see it by pushing the door in. Unlike the BAR I went to before, there were four Vietnamese girls busy at the bar and all the waiters outside the bar were all men. I am used to seeing Vietnamese girls masked by wind and sand in the street, which gives me the illusion that almost all Vietnamese girls have a pair of eyes and a square scarf. At this time, I found that they were as beautiful as the women in the south of the Yangtze River.

On one side of the bar is a rotating staircase leading to the second floor, and on the other side is a small T-shaped stage on which some Vietnamese pop songs are sung. The waiter took us to a railing seat on the second floor, where we could see both the bar and the stage. When he sat down, a singer downstairs had just changed a song. After listening carefully, he didn't even laugh. When he looked back at his companion, they also smiled. It was Zhou Huajian's "unfaithful heart". Fortunately, it was still Vietnamese, only with the help of the same melody, otherwise I would have wondered if I was really in a foreign country. In the end, it is a neighboring country, there are too many similarities.

When the waiter came up to ask us what to order, everyone naturally spoke the native language, and it was not until they saw the blank look on the waiter's face that they realized how similar they were, but the language was still different. So I felt nervous and regretted that I didn't know sign language. I was a little at a loss when I heard the waiter ask, "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" I immediately responded with a reflex: "YES,I DO." For me, this is one of the earliest conversations I learned. I practiced it many times when I was a child, but I didn't know it was useful until today. Calmly ordered the coffee I missed, and began to look down on the CAFE BAR carefully. Dim lights, lingering songs, rotating stairs, old-fashioned ceiling fans spinning slowly on the roof feel like going back in time.

When I was thinking about it, a strong fragrance diverted my attention, and I found that the coffee I had been thinking about day and night was already in front of me. The funny thing is that I didn't see the coffee right away. The mouth of the coffee cup holds a container made of aluminum, which is freshly ground coffee powder, and there are many small holes at the bottom of the container. Add hot water to the container and you can see the brown liquid dripping into the cup. At first, it was just a faint fragrance, which seemed to be entangled, and gradually the fragrance began to thicken bit by bit, so the whole person seemed to be slowly surrounded by the aroma of coffee. In a trance, I seem to go back to my childhood. I remember that at that time, I liked to go to my mother's school in autumn, just because there were sweet-scented osmanthus trees all over the garden. Every time I can smell the fragrance in the distance, and then I will run to the depths of the trees with the scent of flowers, find the largest sweet-scented osmanthus tree, lean against the trunk, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let the scent of flowers surround me tightly.

Pick up the coffee for a moment, some hesitation, if the taste is not good, it will not spoil the fun. But finally can not resist the temptation, carefully drank. Unsweetened coffee is always a bit bitter, but strangely enough, it only feels a little bitter at the entrance, but there is no astringency at all, and then it is masked by a stronger flavor and slides down the throat, while the remaining fragrance in the mouth lasts for a long time. I didn't expect the aftertaste to be so wonderful. No wonder some people like black coffee, good coffee originally needs to drink like this, any addition, can only be icing on the cake. Want to come to the West to drink coffee is the same as the Chinese, is to taste its taste, I have been burdened by shoddy coffee.

There was a feeling of bewilderment all night, always in a dream. Sipping coffee, listening to the low voice of the singer downstairs, let my thoughts wander freely, if it is a dream, I hope I will never wake up. It is a pity that in reality, there will always be the end of the song.

When we left CAFE BAR, the night was already dark and the streets were sparsely populated, and we were still intoxicated in it, so we agreed to go to Hanoi to find a CAFE BAR the next day and take some pictures as a souvenir. Unfortunately, for various reasons, we finally did not have the opportunity to set foot in other CAFE BAR and ended our trip in Vietnam.

China Coffee Trading Network: www.gafei.com