Coffee Drinkers: Then and Now

During times of crisis, poor people didn’t have enough money to buy coffee, so they had to drink coffee substitutes instead.

In the past, coffee was very expensive, and only the nobility or wealthy people could enjoy this fragrant drink. For example, Honoré de Balzac often drank very strong coffee to stay awake for work. He usually worked up to 12 hours a day. Ludwig van Beethoven had a habit of selecting exactly 60 coffee beans to brew a cup of Mokka. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had the idea of distilling coffee. Later, the chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge turned this idea into reality, which led to the discovery of caffeine.

In Vietnam, it was similar — coffee drinkers in the past were mainly from the middle class or nobility. Nowadays, a large number of people can enjoy coffee at prices suitable for their budgets. Some even work right at the coffee shops instead of in offices.

Today, in some countries, coffee is considered a common beverage (usually with low caffeine content) and is often served with pastries or fruits. In Vietnam, coffee is a popular drink, especially in the morning. Refreshment shops (except bars) are often called “coffee shops,” although they also serve other drinks.

In the past, people only needed to step into a small corner coffee stall (also called a “street coffee stand”) to order a small cup of black coffee and sit watching the hot coffee drops slowly drip from the coffee filter. The coffee filter, or “phin,” is specially designed to brew ground coffee into a hot cup that preserves the true flavor of each coffee type. The old recipe for ground coffee used about 10% roasted corn to add thickness and aroma, while the remaining 90% was real coffee beans. The flavor of the coffee also depended on the type of coffee and some secret “special touches” unique to each coffee maker.

The pleasure of drinking coffee in the past was to sit and watch those drops fall while reflecting on life and human nature. People would talk about the news from that day’s newspaper, their views on life, family, friends… Therefore, a good cup of coffee enjoyed with close friends could easily mean sitting together from morning until afternoon at the coffee stall — and that was not uncommon.

Sưu tầm.