My grandparents are big fans of coffee, growing up with them, I always smelled coffee in the house. Though I didn’t take to drinking coffee until my twenty-something, the smell of coffee is something I associate with a shelter and a cozy place.
And there is a cafe for every single need of people in Vietnam, as long as I could specify how I feel and what I want. Most of the times, I prefer a quiet working cafe with a few floors, high desks and chairs, with bright lighting and lots of windows.
I like to do still life studies with coffee glasses and cups as well.
With the growth of social media and online reviewing, coffee shops start investing in interior design, good-quality chairs and tables. They become great subjects for me to paint as I observe how interior design affects how people talks and moves. Lovers meet, friends gather, strangers look at each other. All happens at a coffee shop.
What’s my favourite type of coffee? “Bac xiu”- coffee with lots of milk. It usually has a warm brown color due to the milk. It tastes moderately sweet with a strong aroma from Robusta coffee beans.
I usually go to a coffee shop in the mornings, the silent period. Most people would just get a takeaway before rushing to their workplaces and for more than once, I’m the only customer sitting. I don’t mind the baristas taking their time to make my drink and sometimes they have time to bring the cup to the table for me even though they don’t have to.
There are people in my life I label: ‘coffee people’. They are the ones I never talk with but know the faces, and they know mine. It’s weird I never find the attraction to start a conversation, but they become part of the coffee shop. If anyone creates a cafe theme theater stage, ‘coffee people’ must be there. They have no lines but they have to be there.
I went to coffee shops even on rainy days. It takes more efforts but it’s another kind of experience when it rains heavily outside and you are in the warm lighting indoors sipping a warm coffee cup. The coffee shops becomes a valid shelter.
There’s always a compelling collision of light at a cafe. Light shines through windows, light reflects from glasses and cups, polished coffee machine, light specially made to make you feel attracted to more coffee. We are put under the spell of designed space and light.
Coffee counters is a source of inspiration as well, with lots of objects and activities going around them. And the design may be similar but this counter just feels different from the other one.
Let’s take a break here and enjoy our first (or last) cup of coffee for today, shall we?
Jeanne Lolness 