A lot is written and discussed in regard to Vietnamese coffee. How it's strong and flavoursome. How there are so many ways to serve it and how it's intrinsically woven into the very fabric of Vietnamese culture and society. Most of what's talked though is actually rubbish!
The last part, however, is true. There are coffee shops everywhere. Even restaurants and bars advertise themselves as coffee shops. It's like if you add the words 'coffee shop' to any signboard, no matter what the shop actually is, it will instantly bring success and riches and patriotic pride in your Vietnamese heritage.
"You'd like a coffee with that box of pile ointment?" said no one ever.
I have today been sampling coffees in various coffee shops around where I am staying, trying to work out what is the essence of this enigmatic and such revered beverage.
A hot Vietnamese coffee in a glass
I do genuinely know a little about coffee having spent 6 months teaching English to a coffee shop owner, roaster and coffee show judge who in return, furnished me with free coffee and invited me to a couple of sampling nights, where they tasted each of their latest blends and marked them on a number of factors including aroma, bitterness, acidity blah blah blah. It's like wine tasting, and for the philistanical under-educated and over-gobby like me, absolutely full of crap. I did try to get into the spirit of things and even followed suit by cleansing my palate with virginal mountain spring water between tastings and managing to keep a straight face! They were rather horrified though when I popped out for a cig.
They were not fun evenings!
I want strong coffee in a morning and milky frothy stuff for the rest of the day. I don't care if its three in one, instant, filtered, cold brewed, french dripped, pressed or came from the arse-hole of a civet. I'm not bothered if it's coarsely ground, powdered, triple roasted or freeze-dried. If I want a coffee, I want to boil the kettle, pour the hot water over some Nescafe (Oh my god, slap me silly for buying Nestle products!), throw in some milk and sugar and drink. If it has even the remotest hint of a coffee taste and the caffeine slightly raises my pulse, I'm happy!
A coffee restaurant, except it wasn't. It was simply a restaurant that also sold coffee. I can't imagine how bad their food was if they felt the need to emphasise the 'coffee' part of their fayre!
Don't start me on cold coffee drinks, I spent my whole childhood being told not to let my tea and coffee go cold and with good reason, cold coffee tastes like shit. However, add some ice, and a gallon of Carnation, (Nestle again) and suddenly it's a cool refreshing drink, ideal for hot tropical climates. Sorry, but if it's hot, I prefer a coke and a smile myself. Yes, I'm a brand whore.
A cold coffee in a plastic cup and a straw and no carnation!
So, traditionally, Vietnamese coffee is served using a French Drip (how many French do you know who aren't drips?) over the cup and the hot water percolates through the coarsely ground beans to give it a dark and rich brew which they may then sweeten and lighten using a few drops of condensed milk; to wit* Nestle again. It wasn't even a thing here until the French introduced coffee to the Vietnamese during colonial rule in the 19th century. Sorry, did I say colonial rule? No, they were here under the pretence of protecting the work of their Catholic missionaries. Right. The Vietnamese may drink a lot of coffee nowadays but they certainly ain't fucking Catholics! At least the Brits were honest and just took countries because they could. There is something almost chivalrous about colonialism with integrity.
According to a BBC article, I read:
Coffee was introduced to Vietnam by the French in the 19th Century and a processing plant manufacturing instant coffee was functioning by 1950.
Sorry, it took about 100 years to get a coffee processing plant opened? What were they doing? Obviously, the missionaries took a lot of protecting and there wasn't much time to open a coffee processing plant. By 1950 they'd given up trying to turn South East Asia into a warm Vatican summer camp for Cardinals to take holidays in and gone back to concentrating on the coffee.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, some Americans had opened a plant making condensed milk and a bloke called Henri Nestlé (sounds French, but was in fact a German chemist) had developed powdered milk for infants and they combined in 1905 to create what we all now know and loath as Nestlé. The French were deliriously happy as fresh milk was difficult to get in Vietnam and now they had tins of condensed milk to whiten and sweeten their Vietnamese grown coffee at which point, they finally thought about setting up that coffee processing plant they'd been procrastinating about for over half a century.
Now at this juncture, you're all thinking Carnation right? Wrong!
Carnation evaporated milk which was a Sunday tea time staple in England in the 1970s when we would pour it over some equally delicious Del Monté tinned peaches at my Great Aunt Peggy's house. (Notice how I cleverly managed to sneak another é into the story then?) This is the one that's NOT my photo!
Carnation as a brand, which was originally only condensed milk, began in Washington, America in 1899 by the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company. That was too big to be printed on those little tins so the founder, whilst wandering around town one day in his lunch hour saw a Cigar shop and a display of cigars surrounded by the name 'Carnation' and he simply nicked the name and the brand was born and grew until finally being bought by Nestlé in 1984.
Inside a Vietnamese coffee shop. I felt sorry for the salad dodger on the end, he had no friends and no phone so just sat with his hands on his hips. I don't think he had a girlfriend either but that's simply my own thoughts. I do like to add a little opinion into my serious and factual posts
So, let's get back to the Vietnamese and as I said, I went in three, actually four but I will come to that later, coffee shops today and not one of them used a French drip! They all made the coffee using an Italian style high-pressure coffee maker and served it expresso style with a separate glass of hot water, no milk and a cup of tea. "Up yours Delores" as the Sun once said. Two drinks for the price of one and I have no idea what the tea was in aid of. I should have asked for coffee with milk but I can't utter a word in Vietnamese save for the fact the word coffee in English and Vietnamese is near enough to be understood so I got what I was given and lumped it!
As I stated at the beginning, it was just coffee. If you have ever seen a dredger at work in some harbour someplace and seen that filthy black sludge that comes up in its bucket, then that's what Vietnamese coffee looks like. It's black and tastes like coffee so it is coffee, and when it's hot, it's OK. When it's cold. It isn't.
I am now feeling the need for a little positivity here so the one thing I do like about the small coffee shops is that they have like a reverse stage thing going on which is ideal for me who loves to simply watch the streets and people and the world go by. What I mean by that is that the shops are opened fronted, so looking from the street it looks like a stage, but the seats at the front of the shop all face out like in the picture below, so the stage is the....or the street and in the shop we.....Ok, so in the shop looking out, we are the actors just watching the audience or........I'm losing this, I was working hard on a great metaphor then but let's move on......
The reverse theatre effect
When I go back home on Wednesday, everyone will ask me; "Did you bring some coffee back? Did you like the Vietnamese coffee?" and I will simply say; "Yes, the Vietnamese coffee is so great" with faux enthusiasm because to be honest, I can't be arsed arguing with them. Everyone is a coffee snob when it comes to Vietnamese coffee!
The fourth coffee shop? This evening I was short of steps for my Acti-caffeine post so I walked to a Starbucks. It was packed and the service was awful but the best part?
Not one of the blends they were selling had any Vietnamese coffee beans in it! It was hot, wet, frothy and delicious and cost me 100 000 dong!
@náthén007
*Bonus: English Lesson
A 'To wit' is now just a fixed expression. It's a shortened form of that is to wit meaning “that is to know; that is to say; namely”, from the English verb wit “to know”
*Bonus: French Typing lesson
Ever wondered what the 'altgr' button is for next to the spacebar? It's so you can create grave accents over letters á é etc. You knew that already? Fine, wish I hadn't of bothered.
*Bonus: Milk Facts
Evaporated milk is a shelf-stable canned cow's milk product where about 60% of the water has been removed from fresh milk. It differs from sweetened condensed milk, which contains added sugar.