SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: THIS WEEK IN COFFEE

This week in coffee felt less like hunting for caffeine and more like wandering into tiny human moments scattered around Saigon before the city fully wakes up.

Before 6am one morning, I found a coffee lady tucked into a little hem off Lê Thị Riêng. She was the only one operating for blocks.

A nice dark iced milk coffee. I love that first violent hit of iced milk coffee. 😆 But after days of it, I started craving the cleaner intensity of cà phê đen đá — straight black Vietnamese coffee over ice. There’s a focused kind of energy in it that feels almost medicinal. Sharp. Motivated. Slightly concerning. Probably unhealthy in quantities I’m currently exploring.

A new café, BROWNWAVE, opened up in my neighborhood and Sundays are for indoor cafés and blog posting. A complimentary jar of cordyceps came with a coffee. I remember cordyceps from Bhutan.

One morning I walked out with no destination at all. Just the intention of letting coffee find me. After wandering through streets I’m fairly certain I was never meant to be on, under brutal heat, I ended up at another completely unassuming stand on Bùi Viện.

I ordered in Vietnamese and her entire expression changed. Suddenly there was smiling, correcting my pronunciation of “Bùi Viện” while I filmed, asking if I wanted the coffee in a glass mug instead of takeaway plastic. Yes. Absolutely yes. That tiny gesture somehow said everything. Respect given, respect returned. I love a glass mug!

What struck me this week was how quickly attitudes soften when people realize you are trying — even badly — to meet their culture where it lives instead of demanding it come to you.

I never see any foreigners sitting at these tiny sidewalk coffee stands. They stay inside cafes with air conditioning and playlists curated in Stockholm or Melbourne. Meanwhile, the real pulse of Saigon is sitting six inches above the pavement on a blue plastic chair while scooters scream past your knees.

And honestly? That is the only way I want to experience this city.

On Lê Thi Rieng, I had one iced black coffee at the stand and got another one to go. 😊

Straight Black Coffee

Le Thanh Ton street level – Black with sugar and I asked for Black with no sugar, no milk, and with ice.

One stand gave me the exact opposite of what I ordered — black coffee arrived sweetened with sugar and no ice. Did I complain? Of course not. I know I’m lucky to even be sitting on a sidewalk in Saigon drinking coffee in the first place.