Is coffee bitter?

Author: Chen Danyan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This book is a collection of Chen Danyan's ten years of travel experiences, introducing the cafes in dozens of countries she has visited. There is the "Two Ugly Sisters Café" in Paris, a famous writer's café by the Seine River; and the Eagle Café in West Berlin, the closest café to the Berlin Wall. In this book, what is savored is not just coffee, but more than that, the culture and charm of different regions. With her profound cultural background, the author uses delicate and insightful penwork to show us the origins of each small shop, the mood of each row of seats, and the appearance of each patron. Accompanied by richly layered images and meticulously crafted decorative details, the entire book is filled with the rich cultural aroma of coffee. Sweet as love, bitter as life, black as death—this is coffee, this is life. This book is one of Chen Danyan's European cultural travel essays, a collection of writings filtered from her eleven years of traveling in Europe, introducing famous and unknown cafes from around the world. Illustrated and beautifully presented, it is a delightful read. Leisurely reading such exquisite prose is like holding a cup of "sweet as love, bitter as life, black as death" coffee, a rare enjoyment.
Porto: Old Hotel Café
One summer day in Shanghai, around noon, I went to the Peace Hotel to wait for someone downstairs. Upon arriving, I realized there were several coffee seats there, but we only said to meet in a coffee seat without specifying which one, so I started looking. That day, there were few people in the lobby, while the sunlight outside shone like a bright knife, casting shadows inside. The dimly lit room was illuminated by old yellow light shooting upwards from black cast-iron lampshades, lighting the high ceiling. The curtains were low. Suddenly, I thought of an old hotel café in Portugal, in Porto, the furthest corner of Europe, and they were indeed very similar. At that moment, I suddenly took a closer look at the old hotel beside me. Its ceiling was also high and dim, just like the café in Porto.
Portugal is a poor country in Europe, unlike Germany, which often renovates hotel cafes to be prosperous and wealthy, still retaining the dim and decadent charm of old Europe. The day I visited was early morning, with the sun rising and illuminating the crowded streets and puddles on them. The streets were bustling with cars, but with the chaotic atmosphere of a poor country. Under the lighted ceiling, the brown tables and chairs seemed so small, so secluded, comfortably lost in thought, isolated from the world. The black cast-iron used in the building was elegantly curved. It was the Jugendstil, once widely popular in the early 20th century in Europe, visible in many places in Germany, France, and Spain. However, they had been carefully, or relatively carefully, restored, looking very new. The best-preserved and most dignified Jugendstil can be found in a church in Switzerland, where you'd think they were perfect for the respectable middle class. But in Porto's café, it was different. Like the Peace Hotel, it was carefully preserved but not renovated, perhaps because it couldn't afford to renovate as elegantly as Germany. There, you could still see the sediment of time, wear and tear in the frequently used areas, carrying a certain lyrical and outdated style of the artisanal era, like the fading old Europe.
Wealthy European cities, like Munich, have repaired themselves meticulously, but unfortunately, they have lost much of the charm of old Europe. Porto, due to lack of funds for extensive renovations, and the Peace Hotel, far in East Asia, have unintentionally preserved the old Europe. They even retain heavy, identical round chairs covered in brown leather. The leather is old, with some cracks. A small glass is placed stably on the table. Sitting down, you feel spacious. A warm breeze from the brown floor brushes over your feet. In the corner, there is a row of wall niches surrounded by black cast-iron, once used as old radiators heated by boilers. Now that central air conditioning systems are in place, they are no longer in use, like a mark. If you drink juice here, you hold it in an old-fashioned glass, thick and yellowed. Sitting there, you gaze at a long bar, where the bartender has his hair perfectly combed with pomade, but his black collar ends on a white shirt with a frayed collar. He doesn't look like the bartenders in modern luxury hotels.