Hanoi Old Coffee

It’s now a quarter past six pm. I am sitting in a Hanoi old coffee house, listening to a strange jogtrot piece of traditional music. Alone. Notwithstanding this, I love that. Today, I call for a hot cup, because an autumn night is mislaying in the middle of summer out there, and hot black coffee would be perfect.
Vietnamese traditional coffee stands out of all other coffee over the world. We call it “filter-coffee”, the name straightly describes how we drink it. The pure coffee seeds are ground into powder after being dried by sunshine or a big roaster. We put this barely natural powder in a “filter”, and then put this “filter” on the top of a glass. This filter is cup-shaped with tiny holes in the bottom. The holes are big enough for water to drop through, but small enough for the coffee powder not go down into the glass. Pour “the first hot water” into the filter, this “first” is just for clean all dust and impurities. After waiting for 1 or 2 minutes, we separate this water and pour new hot one, which is called “the second water”. Now all we have to do is waiting for every little drop absorbs all delicacy of the nature coffee, sneak through the tiny holes and finally stay peaceful in the glass. This coffee would be the mightiest wonder of the world, extreme bitter but exquisitely sweet.
When I entered the college, I had to prepare for an assignment on coffee and wander through “Four Symbols of Hanoi” coffee houses: Dinh, Lam, Giang, Tri (Vietnamese often named a well-known café by its host, as if Iphone will be named Steve’s or Facebook will be called Mack). My friend said: “Pure black coffee is like an old introvert scientist, smell nothing even if you try nose out. However, if pretend to leave a drop of this black liquor on your palm; it will leave a ridiculous sexy irresistible scent deep down in your skin until tomorrow, while the strong feeling that instant coffee did made will completely disappear after you finish it”.
Too much strong condensed pure coffee cups this day made me drunk and rolled out of lethargy. The next morning, I woke up without any hangover, took a deep breath and then heard the sound of autumn knocking on the window; and suddenly realized: I just simply fell in love with true black coffee.
Thus, here are just some nonsense feelings coming out of nowhere when I sit here and enjoy my peaceful hobby. Hanoi coffee presents its people – patient, peaceful, exquisite, bitter outside but sweet inside.