It's all over, my child!

Customers wait to buy coffee from the elderly couple at alley 499 Ba Hat Street, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City.

It's not that the owners are making things difficult for customers, but arriving late means everything is sold out, and if you want to wait, you'll have to wait a long time because they brew it using a filter, requiring patience with every step. They don't want to keep customers waiting, so they'll just say, "It's all gone, dear!" unless the coffee is ready.

So, if you want to drink their coffee, you have to go early, around 6 a.m., to be ready because they say they leave home before sunrise. Many customers are patient and time their arrival perfectly, like "the right person at the right time," just to get a cup of coffee from them.

The elderly couple had a charcoal stove with a glowing ember to boil water, then brewed coffee using an aluminum filter. They meticulously cared for every detail, carefully monitoring the drips and preparing everything so that when the coffee was ready, they could serve it to their customers. Watching them work, everyone felt that the cup of coffee they drank was truly precious because of their meticulousness, patience, neatness, and the heart they put into it. So, those who didn't get to drink it left feeling happy, not disappointed, because they would say, "I'll come back next time."

Takeaway coffee cups are being shared by young people on social media.

On social media, young people often share pictures of coffee they bought from their grandparents, expressing pride and joy as if it were some expensive cup of coffee. In reality, their grandparents' coffee is quite cheap, but the "expensive" part is what their grandparents put into it.

Over time, we will no longer see grandparents brewing coffee in aluminum filters and then serving it to guests; instead, we will see coffee pre-packaged in glass bottles. They brew it at home because they are no longer healthy enough to do all the steps themselves as before.

Have you had a drink yet? Savor the unique taste of our grandparents' coffee, and it'll be gone by around 10 o'clock!

(Entry for the "Impressions on Vietnamese Coffee and Tea" contest, part of the "Celebrating Vietnamese Coffee and Tea" program, 2nd edition, 2024, organized by Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper).