The Boss' relationship with coffee is a robust espresso - earthy, floral, a little fruity. Wherever we go, we immediately seek out coffee and then the other coffee she read about and then the best coffee we can find...and then we keep having more coffee. I didn't drink much coffee before The Boss, but there's no way around it. She's a coffee monster. I love The Bosslady, and The Bosslady loves coffee. This is the way of things.
Any time anyone mentions coffee, The Boss is compelled to announce with thick adoration and longing:
"I love coffee."
As though there's anyone who didn't know.
The Boss holds the following truths to be self-evident, but I'll explain because not everyone is a coffee whisperer like she is.
Every country has different coffee.
But every country has coffee, and that's the most important thing. Make no mistake about that. That is why we can go anywhere - there will be coffee. Not roads; not sitting toilets; not Internet; not even cheese. Coffee. It's coffee. Not all coffee is created equal, however, and this can help determine length of stay, likelihood of return visits, or simply the number of different places where we must have coffee. The ease of consistently obtaining good coffee is often directly proportional to The Boss' resting mood. Therefore, it is important to maintain a steady flow of quality coffee into The Boss' face.
Every morning starts with coffee.
And don't you forget it. Don't tell her you didn't know that and do not, under any circumstances, make the morning about other less important stuff. Fie, for shame! Mornings are for coffee and for no pants. Things that ruin this perfect state of harmony, e.g., fire alarms, natural disasters, and work, are bad. Coffee doesn't judge your hair tangles; it caresses the nose with its intoxicating aroma and warms the rumbly tum-tum.
Math? Please. Coffee is the universal language.
A simple examination of linguistics proves it.
Firstly, do you speak math? I didn't think so. Wait, what? You're an engineer? A physicist? Fine. In the event that you do in fact speak math, does everyone you know speak math? Of course not. Unless maybe if you're an astronaut - in which case please leave a comment below; The Boss would LOVE to know that a real, live astronaut reads Globepouncing. Yes, I'm looking at you, @captmarkkelly. Be a good senator. We both voted for you. Make a nice coffee-loving lady's day.
More to the point...Do you want coffee? Probably. Coffee goes with breakfast; it goes with lunch; it goes with dinner; it goes with dessert. It's fine by itself, but it's friendly with milk, cream, liquor, ice cream - even non-dairy milk. You're happy to have coffee in the early morning, mid-morning, or late morning - all three if you're German. It makes delicious baked goods even better. Afternoon coffee is good. You go to coffee with casual acquaintances. You go to coffee with the best friends you've ever had. You go with everyone in between. You even choose to do your work at the coffee shop because working at coffee is way better than working at work. People interview at coffee; people prepare for interviews at coffee; people celebrate getting the job and quitting the job at coffee. You go to coffee to get ready for stuff and to relax after stuff, and coffee has definitely led to...better than friend stuff...
The smell of coffee brings you to your favorite places: Brunch. The Mediterranean Sea. Grandmom's house. Even the mention of coffee makes you think about your favorite people and where you would drink coffee with them and what coffee you would drink. (Granddad, dining room, Gevalia Stockholm Roast). You know exactly how it was prepared and served. Coffee is the black amber in which your memories are preserved so that you can make awesome dinosaurs out of them later.
But I digress. You want linguistic analysis: Go to Germany: kaffee. Italy: caffè. Vietnam: cà phê. The name sounds the same or super-close as spoken in Chinese (咖啡), Greek (καφές), Russian (кофе), Turkish (kahve), Czech and Slovak (káva), Indonesian and Javanese (kopi), Khmer (កាហ្វេ), Zulu (ikhofi)...the list goes on and on. It's even pretty close in Arabic (قهوة pronounced qahua), Japanese (コーヒー pronounced Kōhī), and Swahili (kahawa). In every single instance, in every language family, on every continent, its initial consonant sound is the same, and in almost every instance the entire first syllable is the same. No other beverage does that - not water, not milk, not oil, not tea, not anything. In fact, in terms of linguistics, the only other thing of any kind that rivals coffee is chocolate - not bread, not rice, not trees, not football, not sex. Chocolate. So coffee and chocolate - yeah, that sounds about right, and Duolingo backs me up on this.
Most words for coffee also end with a fricative consonant sound and a hard 'a' (ā) or hard 'e' (ē) sound - as it does in English, German, all the Nordic and Romance languages, and most others. Oh, and everyone knows 'coffee' and 'café' anyway.
Absolutely everybody everywhere speaks coffee. Not math. Coffee. Coffee is the cognate that binds us all together. In fact, now that I think about it, the union of coffee and chocolate might just be The Force.
All hotels and resorts are to be judged based on their coffee.
It is right and just to judge establishments in such a way. God says so, or at least The Boss does, and who am I to challenge The Boss?
We love Con Dao, a beautiful tropical island off Vietnam's southern coast a short puddle-jump from Saigon. We also love the place we stay when we go: Villa Maison.
But their coffee is only - as The Boss puts it - "acceptable."
She has also described it as "meh" and "good but not great." Now, as far as Vietnamese cà phê goes, it's objectively excellent - the aroma is rich, and just an ounce of fresh milk makes for a very nice coffee. I like it.
No one's taste in coffee, however, is as sophisticated as that of The Boss.
Aside from only adequate coffee, Villa Maison is perfect. The staff, the rooms, the food - perfect. Coffee alone made The Boss reconsider one of the best places we've ever stayed, and only complete perfection in all other areas kept it off the no-go list - that and the fact that there are several coffee places nearby - and the coffee's not even bad!
Coffee can put a hotel at risk, but coffee can also put a hotel in a league of its own. The Sailing Club in Mui Ne, Vietnam is a Boss favorite not only because of the quality of their espresso but because of the high frequency of their offers to bring The Boss more.
When it comes to The Sailing Club, The Boss gushes: "You get all the coffee you want for free, it's espresso, you can have any kind you want - straight, Americano, cappuccino, coconut ice, anything - and it's all free! And they keep asking if you want more, and they didn't question when I asked for more than one at the same time! It's amazing."
What else is there to say? Get your coffee in order, hotels.
Espresso is better.
This is The Boss' real issue with Villa Maison coffee: lack of choice, and when I say choice, yes: I mean ability to choose espresso.
This is also why we can't live in rural, small-town America...that and a few other things. Espresso is not fancy. It's not just for Europeans. Espresso is the truth. Espresso with water in it is an Americano, and it's better than regular drip joe. Why? I don't know. Why is vacation better than work? Why is grass better than turf? Why is every color better than yellow? Why are good ribs better than good wings? Why are puppies better than anything? They just are. I'm not a psychic. And no, I don't need water in my espresso - that was just an example to bring espresso somewhat closer to a tenuous comparison with a clearly inferior product. I'll take the deepest, darkest espresso straight into the back of my face any time because it's delicious.
Ever hear anyone talk about drip coffee like that? I didn't think so - and that wasn't even The Boss. That was just me.
That said, quality drip coffee will do in a pinch, but it has to be quality. One does not wish to disappoint The Boss at coffee time.
Coffee is good for me, and it's good for you.
The Bosslady strikes again: all the most recent studies out there link coffee with a host of very attractive health benefits. Johns Hopkins reports that moderate coffee intake reduces risk of type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, stroke, Parkinson's disease, colon cancer, and breakage in DNA strands. Dawn MacKeen of the New York Times cites Erika Loftfield at the National Cancer Institute and the British Medical Journal to report the same information in a February 2020 column. The list of studies and publications that report positive health benefits from drinking coffee has grown significantly in recent years. Who knew? Oh, right: The Boss.
To be perfectly clear, adding a pile of cream, sugar, or both significantly diminishes potential health benefits. Apparently, boiled coffee is also no good: the same studies suggest boiled coffee increases bad cholesterol and decreases good cholesterol.
The studies cited speak to regular consumption of 300-500 mL of high-quality, normally-roasted black coffee. No gallon jugs. No IV drips. Nothing boiled.
Coffee should be pure, but there is good coffee that isn't black coffee.
Black coffee is the surest way to the Boss' heart, but there are non-black coffees that work.
To be clear - there are certain coffees that do not work. For example, Arabic coffee isn't our jam. It's the cardamom; some people are into it; we aren't. Black Vietnamese cà phê also doesn't top our list - too strong; it tastes like coffee liquor. Finally, 'diner coffee' is usually our description of black coffee that's just no good.
A good cappuccino, though? Yes, please! -- 'weekend coffee' The Boss calls it. A good Vietnamese cà phê with sweetened condensed milk (cà phê sữa đá) is also a treat. But what's our favorite impure coffee? A good coconut coffee (cà phê dừa) with freshly ground coconut meat; we believe that's the best way to enjoy Vietnamese cà phê.
The Boss' go-to? A black Americano...most weekdays. That or a quality French press.
Be like The Boss and enjoy your coffee, Globepouncers!
If you'd like to learn more about coffee than you ever thought you could and you have a thirst for U.S. immigration reform, you might like to have a read of The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers. The Boss and I both enjoyed it. If you'd like to contribute to a worthy cause, you can also donate to The Mokha Institute.
This is the greatest and best blog post about coffee and/or travel to ever cross the path of this very coffee friendly bear. You retain and strengthen the honor of being Friendly with Bears.