I started drinking coffee during my studies -
en masse
.
A whole liter at unspeakable times was needed if I wanted to do housework in addition to an internship during the semester break.
However, my new vice also opened up a new world for me: because almost every country has its own coffee culture, and it is not uncommon for a sip of coffee to bring me closer to people on my travels than a travel guide would ever have been able to do.
Johanna Christner
Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.
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For my last big trip before the pandemic, I prepared in the Frankfurt train station district, more precisely in a local Vietnamese snack bar.
I was served coffee with a steel cup attachment, the Vietnamese coffee filter
phin
, which promises a particularly aromatic result.
It is drunk as soon as the coffee has trickled through the filter, and then sweetened with condensed milk if desired.
I knew the latter mainly as an ingredient in Southeast Asian desserts. As a child in the Philippines, I was sometimes sent to the nearest sari sari store, a kind of kiosk that sells everything from salty snacks to cosmetics, including condensed milk. My cousins and I sipped the contents of the can, which at the time cost the equivalent of 50 cents, was not used for dessert in the evening - it was not uncommon for elbows to play a role.
Since coffee is sweetened with condensed milk in Vietnam, I found that these people know what is good. When I first toured the country in the summer of 2019, I realized: These people are really coffee connoisseurs. Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world. And my coffee with added condensed milk, which I already loved in Germany, is served there, but as I found out later in Vietnamese restaurants in this country, also served cold with ice cubes. That
cà phê sữa đá usually
tastes best, according to my non-representative study, when you drink it at small street stalls: The condensed milk is filled in a plastic bottle, the ice cubes in a large cool box, the smile behind the coffee cart is friendly.
Cà phê sữa đá
tastes so good that I calmly had a cup filled several times a day.
Coffee with raw egg
A must for every coffee
lover
in Vietnam:
Cà phê cốt dừa
.
Compared to the
Cà phê sữa đá, it tastes
less sweet and is refined with coconut.
Depending on the location, condensed milk is also added here.
And those who have tried these variations are ready for
cà phê trứng
, coffee with condensed milk - and raw eggs.
The hot drink looks correspondingly yellow, which tastes intensely like its main ingredient and better with every sip.
“Can you recommend that”, I was asked after the obligatory Instagram post about “Egg Coffee”.
Answer: Yes, very much.
Even if these detailed descriptions may sound like it: I was not only in Vietnam to drink coffee.
In addition to relaxation, the top priority for me was to learn more about the history of this country.
So I put on my list: The War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
My brother and I spent several hours in the museum, and with every floor there was growing bewilderment about what was going on in this country during the almost 20 year long war - and the long-term consequences that followed.