Lao Qiong's Works -- 100 Degree Coffee 200 Degree Is Not

Author: Lao Qiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Every day, a cup of coffee is very important to me, and I never drink it at home while driving. I take a newspaper or a book, leave the house, go down the mountain, and choose a café I like and am accustomed to, staying there for two hours to drink my cup of coffee. Even during typhoon days. Before work starts, and pressure hasn’t yet arisen, the whole person feels very "relaxed." I enjoy starting my day this way. Two hours have passed. The 100-degree coffee is finished. The 200-degree troubles are just beginning! The music and customers in the café will create different atmospheres. Moreover, every café is different. In Japan, after work hours, it’s the women’s world in the café; in France, on open-air benches, the drama of being watched and watching unfolds. Men discuss business in cafés, while women chat about their thoughts. Cafés exist because of people, and those visible and invisible stories. No matter which country I wake up in, the first thing I do is still to find a café. Avoiding the identical chain cafés on the main streets, I turn into the alleys, expecting the little shop that’s rumored to be favored by some writer to be hidden somewhere among them. Once, in a corner of a German castle, I found a tiny coffeeshop. Extremely simple and rustic in its furnishings, with a man with messy hair, a small round table crowded with newspapers, books, and coffee. Suddenly, I had a sense of "meeting a kindred spirit in a foreign land." I thought, perhaps the awakening of the world also begins with this cup of coffee.