Vietnam, Meet Joe

Coffee is a pleasure that I came to pretty late in life relative to most of my friends. My grandmother gave me my first taste when I was a kid and I swore I'd never drink it again. In my college years, I found the wonder of vanilla cappuccinos from the local gas station. I know it sounds gross, but they were perfect for those all night homecoming float decoration extravaganzas, and studying too. You could say I liked my sugar with coffee and cream back then. During my last year of grad school, my roommates thought it was un-grad student of me to not drink coffee. I explained my distaste, but they convinced me that I just hadn't had good coffee. After being peer pressured into trying it again, I found I actually liked it, with milk and sugar of course. I'm no coffee connoisseur, but I know what I like and I think I can successfully identify a good cup of joe. A really good cup, I've found, doesn't need my handy packet of Splenda and skim milk. It tastes good just as it is.

I wasn't expecting to find a gem like that in Vietnam, but I was hoping for a decent cup of coffee. Amazingly enough, their version of instant coffee isn't all that bad. It is sweet sure enough, but overall, I've had much worse instant coffee. I've also had much worse regular coffee. Case in point, the pictures below. On Tuesday, I attended a workshop where during tea break, I was poured the absolute worse cup of coffee on the planet. I added sugar, I added milk. Even the color wouldn't change from the black sludge that was sitting in my cup. For those of you who need your morning cup of coffee to function, be prepared to struggle if you visit Vietnam. Or, you could bring your own coffee with you, and a little extra for me. ;-)

What are the bubbles you ask? No clue. Toxic waste?

Appetizing, eh?