Article: Phan Cac Truc
Photos: Tron Le
Before drinking filter coffee the French way, Saigonese made filter coffee Chinese style. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, everyone in Saigon enjoyed a delicious breakfast of filter coffee dipped in fried dough sticks. Children often sat nearby to get a few sips from the adults. A cup of coffee for just a few dong back then was a childhood spent messing around the neighborhood, a youth filled with hope to contribute to the country.
To have a strong cup of coffee brewed with a tin filter, people will put finely ground coffee into the filter, dip it into a pot of hot water boiled on a wood stove, stir to create foam and wait a while before pouring it into the pot. The blacker the filter, the stronger the coffee. The filter must be made of clay to keep the pure coffee flavor. Many people jokingly call this hand-made "stewed" coffee, but to "stewed" well, the coffee must be of good quality.
Nowadays, not many young people come to enjoy filter coffee anymore, partly because filter coffee is more complicated and requires more steps than filter coffee. But the children of those days, now with gray hair, still come to the shop every day to wait for a cup of coffee, read the newspaper bought from a small stall nearby, and enjoy the fragrant smell of coffee in the Saigon space of 1954.
It seemed that Saigon was still stuck in that period. At that time, the youth were a bit impulsive, always full of ideals and hopes. They either went to the battlefield or were busy with rallies, all for their ideals.
At that time, my grandparents didn't have Instagram or Facebook. We still talked to each other through carefully written letters.“Let's love each other until the day we forget the month…”
(Trinh Cong Son)
