[jackbl]

Confessions Of An English Coffee Eater
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I hate coffee. I mean, I can tolerate it, if I can’t taste it. But a curious thing has happened to me since I moved to Vietnam. I need it now. If I don’t drink it I am asleep. And now that I need it to be awake, and can disguise the taste with sweet condensed milk, I am discovering that I kind of like it. I like coffee, a lot.

One of the best ways to pass the time in Hanoi is, I believe, to sit in one of its many traditional cafés, a drip coffee percolating slowly by one’s side, a book in hand or — if one has drunk too much coffee — just stare at the world and its people as they pass, imagine absurd things and, as slowly and softly as the coffee drips into the cup, lose one’s mind.

In a city full to the brim with great cafés, it’s hard to pick favourites. There are still so many I haven’t been to. But let me introduce you to ten I consider to be among the best. After a bit of research on the internet I now know that it would take 78.86 cups of drip coffee to kill someone of my body weight, which means that I, and probably you (unless you’re one thousandth my size), can visit them all in one day. Come with me.


On the Drip

I start at Cong Caphe (152D Trieu Viet Vuong, Hai Ba Trung) as it’s near my house and is purported to sell a coffee that sounds a bit like it could be breakfast. The café probably needs no introduction, but anyway it’s a cool place, high-ceilinged and decorated with baby propaganda and thimbles of coloured thread. The coffee, which comes from Buon Me Thuot, is normally excellent. I drink a coffee with yoghurt and sticky rice (VND50,000). It’s bitty and tastes fermented, like Christmas cardboard. Filling, but not my thing, maybe it’s yours.

Next I wheel myself up the road to Café 61 (61 Trieu Viet Vuong, Hai Ba Trung). The best thing about this place is its prices — almost as cheap as in the past. I order a ca phe sua da (VND15,000). It seems to be a place where men come to sleep. A couple of them are passed out in window seats. I sit at the stone table out the back. It’s slightly Narnian in aspect, although coloured as if the Aslan to be slain was a giant Dalmatian rather than a lion. The caffeine is kicking in nicely now. I’m awake.

A brisk, slightly nervy drive takes me to Café Duy Tri (43 Yen Phu, Tay Ho). I’m told this is one of the best cafes in the city. A narrow entrance framed with square jars of coffee beans leads to the ground floor seating area. On the walls are pictures of sharp-toothed rodents, some gnawing something pink and fleshy. A human face? The inside of a knee? Upstairs are two more levels, with slightly less alarming mosaics adorning the walls, and framed photos of a sword and an old tennis racquet (I think). Some of the seats are made from upturned beer crates. I take a seat on the balcony overlooking the bustle of the street. Their speciality, sua chua ca phe (VND20,000), is excellent, and tastes vaguely of chocolate. I’m not sure, but I think I can hear the electricity in the wires buzzing. Yes. Yes I can. They’re right next to me. Can you hear them? You can’t?

Heading back into the centre of town, I visit Café Pho Co (11 Hang Gai, Hoan Kiem — enter through the silk shop) for a cup of their famous egg coffee (VND40,000). It’s a load of froth through which the coffee glides downwards. It tastes a little bit eggy, a lot like roasted marshmallows. Spooning it into my mouth I lock my quivering eyes on the view of Hoan Kiem Lake. This used to be the ‘secret café’ — a slice of Hanoi passed down from person to person, until some winky put it in the Lonely Planet and it became another stop on the trail. Apparently, there’s a new ‘secret café’, and I know where it is. No way I’m telling you, though. No way. It’s a bit of a suffocating walk out through the tunnel, which is dark and narrow and dark, and turns purple at the end like being born into the light. It’s too bright out here.

Fully Wired

Time for lunch, so I drive to Café Cat (2 Chau Long, Ba Dinh). Here you can get some very tasty pho ordered in from across the street. I get a bowl of pho bo chin with an egg in it (VND40,000) and a ca phe sua da (VND25,000). I clutch chopsticks between my violently shaking fingers and eat, watched over by wooden cats. Good. I don’t like cats. The café is quiet and the Wi-Fi is strong. I get my computer out. I write emails until a loud tapping sound begins to annoy me. It’s disturbing the peace and quiet I’ve found. Eventually, I realise it’s my own fingers hammering away at the keys. This is some good coffee here. Good.

Next stop is Café Xe Co (11-13 Hang Bun, Ba Dinh). My fingers smell of apples. I haven’t eaten apples. Here is filled with old bikes and motorbikes. Very funky place. Coffee here (VND20,000). I can’t stop smelling my fingers. It’ll be ok. Good. I like it here. But it’s time to leave. I can’t find my motorbike key. Is that it, up there in the wires? What the…? It’s massive. I’m shrinking, so small. How on earth did that happen? Pat my body to make sure. Wait. I don’t own a Vespa. That’s not mine. My key is small. Here it is, by my foot. I am still big. Good.



At Café Lam (60 Nguyen Huu Huan, Hoan Kiem), small wooden tables and chairs line the walls, which are covered in paintings. The coffee (VND17,000) is very strong here. I once scared a man, I think, by gibbering at him under the influence of the beans in this place. This time I’m here alone and will scare no one. In one of the propaganda-style paintings, a baby is suckling at its mother’s breast — which is nice. In another, a tiny, grey-skinned woman in a blue ao dai is holding aloft, or being crushed by, a wooden tobacco bong three times the size of her. In yet another picture there is a pot and six cups. I’ve had six cups of coffee today. Who told them? And why are they looking at me? I down my seventh and leave. I’m frightened.

Skipping a Beat

At the end of Ngo 12 Dang Thai Mai, past the Hoang An Pagoda in Tay Ho is a little café on the water with stone tables, a view of the lake, the murmur of hidden frogs, the splash of men fishing, and coffee (VND20,000). You can sit here very still, close your eyes, and breathe. But you may begin to think you’re a frog, or inside a frog, or inside the water being fished for. And then you won’t be able to breathe and you’ll gasp for air. And people will stare at you, and you’ll have to go.

This traffic is intense. Back in town at Café Junghans (64 Hoa Ma, Hai Ba Trung) I am now surrounded by old clocks. The proprietor tells me there may be up to 800 of them. They are beautiful, these clocks, set to different times. I am drinking coffee (VND20,000). It’s impossible to live at all these different times. The clocks are German. A punctual people I’m told. Never met one. Proprietor neither. Clocks chime. They’re all ticking. Tick-tock. Put my ear to some of them. Absolute silence. Put my fingers to my neck. Feel my galloping heart. Hear it banging in my ears. It is I who tick, I who tock. Would be tiring to live all these parallel lives at once. Would need a lot of coffee. Outside is a tree, gnarled with time. At its base sits a key-cutter, a cutter of keys. To unlock time? No. That’s a stupid thing to say. Stupid. To unlock the tree. Still trying.

The sun, though I can’t see it, is setting. I’m drinking coffee (VND20,000) on Ho Xa Dan. A kingfisher lives here, and terrapins bask on a log. I would tell you where I drink but the lake is ringed with places so you can just pick one. Anyway, I come here to read and don’t want to meet you here. If you turn up you’ll ask me if you can join me and I’ll want to say ‘no’ but I’ll say ‘yes’ so as not to offend you and then resent you as you sit down. Or I’ll say ‘no’ and then feel horrible and be unable to concentrate on my book anyway. Or perhaps you’d only asked to be polite, and when I say ‘yes’ you’ll feel like you have to sit with me and will resent me when you do. Better you just choose your own café. Anyway, I can’t talk to you now or look you in the eye. My heart, it beats like a little bird’s.

* This article was published in The Word Hanoi