Coffee Power

Here I am in the power line café. It’s a second floor corner café which affords lovely views, as can be seen. The owners have made the most of the aspect, with floor to ceiling windows on 2 sides. Strangely enough, it is quite a peaceful place and the attentive staff always keep your glass refreshed with ice tea. It’s also very close to my house, so I have been known to spend a few hours here. And it can be an inspiring place to write, whether that’s caused by the coffee or the electricity I’m not sure.

They do the serve the more traditional Vietnamese drip filter style coffee here, but that stuff makes me want to climb walls so I usually steer clear. Sometimes I wonder if this turbo charged coffee might explain Vietnam’s rapid economic development. No wonder everyone’s up at 5am, doing their morning exercise in the park, able to push and shove their way through the manic traffic on their 100cc Hondas, holding down 2 jobs, doing extra degrees, learning English. It’s all fuelled by those robusta beans from the Central Highlands.

Though a lot of people still take their coffee on the street, like these guys in the picture, coffee shops are very popular, and they can be extreme. The ones I admire but don’t frequent are vast multilayered palaces that throb with techno music and flashing coloured lights. Then at the other end of the spectrum are the Zen places full of water features and green foliage, they can often be just as big though. I am also quite fond of the rustic trend where hand made furniture is key, and you may come across a cement seat sculpted into a tree stump.

Whatever shape or size they may take, coffee shops in HCMC are ideal places to imbibe and watch the world go by, even if it is though power lines.