ChoLon, the place for something different - Net Coffee

The British have a very strong brew of tea that they call 'lorry driver tea' usually bought where these champions of the highways have a rest, called cafés.

The Chinese version of this brew is called Hong Kong Style tea, a derivative of the Chinese tea culture. Morning breakfast is often 一盅兩件 (One bowl of ta [tea] with two pieces of Dim Sum). The tea leaves are placed in a muslin bag and hung in a tea-pot and hot water poured over it when a customer asks for tea. Really puts 'lead in the pencil'.

This technique has passed over to the coffee making process.

I was in ChoLon the other day when I had a visitor and he complained about Vietnamese 'drip coffee'. So I took him to TAN PHUOC STREET, Quan 11, where we walked slowly along sniffing the air. Then we found it - the smell of firewood smoke blended with the aroma of sweet coffee. ChoLon is a veritable repository of the 'old ways'. there are several sources of this unique ChoLon smell, but we chose my favourite.

There, beyond the Cho Thiec (Tin Market), which is alongside TAN PHUOC STREET, was LUU Nhan Thanh's coffee table. Mr. LUU is a Chinese-Vietnamese man in his 70's. LUU has a fine head of black hair, with a band of white hair over his forehead. Bare chested, he works his magic.

Around the table are scattered a few old tables and chairs - you know the type - too small for Western-sized posteriors. On the coffee table you will see cups and saucers, a charcoal burner and a rice cooker.The major feature is a yellow-coloured Chinese tea pot. It has a looped wire for a handle but it's spout protrudes parallel to it's side handle.

Water is heated over a firewood fuelled Chinese-style oven - cooler than charcoal - it is preferable for the coffee making process. The ground coffee is placed in a muslin filter net which is placed in the yellow tea pot. Then LUU pours the boiling water carefully over the net, ensuring that every part of it is wetted.

And there it sits awaiting his many customers.

Mr. LUU's coffee emporium opens at 06.00H, although Thanh usually gets up at 05.00H everyday to light up firewood in an oven to boil water. He then puts coffee powder in a cloth-made net, and pours boiled water into the net, which is put in a yellow earthen pot. Earthen clay pots can keep the smell of the coffee a very long time, and the coffee will be tastier than that made by stainless steel coffee filter.

For many decades, net-made coffee was very popular in the ChoLon (Chinatown areas), which include Quan's 5, 6 and part of 11. With the advent of modern commercial coffee shops and employees called 'baristas' these net coffee shops suffered attrition.

Mt. LUU’s coffee shop open from 06.00H through 17.00H, seven days a week. Coffee costs an honest VND6,000 although it is common practice just to hand over a VND10,000 note and waive the change away.

Compare that to the flavoured muck that comes from Starbucks!

Again, how to get there. Take NGUYEN CHI THANH to LY TRUONG KIET. Continue west to the fourth small street which is LE DAI HANH (one way) . The third street on the left is TAN PHUOC STREET and Mr, LUU's shop is on Hiem 131.