This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004

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Ca Phe Sua Da

9:47 PM Saturday, June 4, 2005

[Sippers of the Crimson Sage]

The first time I tasted a Vietnamese iced coffee was in (duh...) Vietnam. It was in the early 1970's. No, I wasn't there to kill people, but, yes, I was the recipient of an all-expense-paid US government grant which included a spiffy olive-green uniform with matching baseball cap and air-cooled "jungle" boots.

Vietnamese coffee is very special and a genuine treat. It is not for people in a hurry. Hot water is poured into a metal filter with coffee grounds in a removable well at the bottom. The brewed coffee drips into a glass below the filter, into which condensed milk (evaporated milk with sugar poured from a can) has been poured. When the filter is empty (many minutes later), the coffee and condensed milk can be stirred with ice, and then sipped ecstatically. It tastes sort of like an old-fashioned coffee ice cream soda, with no fizz and more intense coffee flavor.

The French introduced coffee plantations to the central highlands of Vietnam in the mid-nineteenth century. Would it surprise you to learn that Vietnam today is a major world exporter of coffee, second only to Brazil? It surprised me. I have read that Vietnamese coffee is mostly the high-caffeine robusta, rather than the "gourmet" arabica species. As with all coffees grown everywhere, Vietnamese coffee cultivation, which is government-owned ( I'm told that there are private owners now too), can be hard on indigenous people and on the local ecosystem. In any case, even if you never ordered an iced coffee in a Vietnamese restaurant (try it: I recommend it!) you may have tasted it without knowing it from the coffeepot at the office.

The story, however, doesn't end there. I believe that Vietnam deserves a place with the other great coffee cultures of the world: Turkey, Vienna, Italy, France, Seattle.

To prove my point conveniently, take a look at the 2005 World Barista Championship in Seattle. Specialty coffee associations around the world entered their candidates. The winner was Phuong Tran, a Washington State resident born in Vietnam, who created the Crimson Sage, a coffee drink flavored with sage-infused steamed milk. (Combining coffee with spices, including cacao, cinnamon, chicory, and cardamom —hel in the Middle East— is nothing new, but using sage is.) Tran, owns a coffee house, Lava Java, in Ridgefield, Clark County.

And now to complete the circle. While I was in Vietnam on my "McNamara Sabbatical" I had the good fortune to enjoy the hospitality of a Saigon family on weekends. Today the members of the family are scattered among many countries; it was this family who introduced me to my first Ca Phe Sua Da, and it was one of its members, Nguyen thi Ngoc Thoa, who emailed me about Phuong Tran. Thoa herself now works in San Francisco as a project manager for a Vietnamese community health program, and goes by the moniker of Thoa Nguyen (photo. above). Thoa, many thanks.

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