Tea and coffee connect families.

(NLĐO) - In my family, just looking at our drinking habits reveals the quiet passage of time.

In my grandparents' time, the only thing in the house was a pot of hot tea, for drinking, entertaining guests, or chatting with each other. In my parents' time, we occasionally had a fragrant cup of coffee on Sunday mornings. But the teapot has always been a symbol of family, reflecting the lifestyle of my grandparents and parents: quiet, patient, and persistent...

My generation is accustomed to coffee. Each day usually begins with a morning cup of coffee at a sidewalk cafe with friends and colleagues, and a seemingly never-ending thermos of iced tea. The shift from drinking tea indoors to drinking coffee outdoors shows how different city life has become.

My children drink almost exclusively coffee. For them, coffee shops are spaces for working, meeting friends, or holding online meetings. Young people's coffee – and tea too – now offers more choices and variety, sometimes making it difficult to distinguish between Eastern and Western styles, reflecting a complex and increasingly interconnected world .

Tea and coffee help connect families (Illustrative image)

One might think that generations are drifting apart: from tea to coffee, from slow to fast, from a warm teapot at home to a cool coffee shop on the street. But because we accept life's changes, we haven't lost our family bond. Generations are closer when they sit together, some sipping tea as they reminisce about the past, others drinking machine-brewed coffee as they look towards the future. Both are essential because "we are a family."

And somewhere between the astringency of tea and the bitterness of coffee, there's a common thread: both offer the lingering sweetness of family tradition. That's why, in my house, every morning before the children brew a pot of coffee to take to work, we always place cups of hot tea on the altar to offer to our ancestors.

(Entry for the "Impressions on Vietnamese Coffee and Tea" contest 2026, part of the 4th "Celebrating Vietnamese Coffee and Tea" program organized by Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper).

Source: https://nld.com.vn/tra-ca-phe-ket-noi-gia-dinh-196260330130631171.htm