‘Joe’ from ‘Nam’

I recently got an e-mail from my friend Sarah (a fellow Israeli journaler) who had just returned from a visit to the 'old country'.  It seems she had returned to the holy land bearing a gift for me.

No, really... I’m not talking about some gag gift or purloined soap from the airplane... a real, honest-to-goodness present. 

For me!

As if this wasn’t enough to give me a chronic case of the ‘warm fuzzies’ (I mean, really... I’m a daddy for kripes sake... I give the presents around chez treppenwitz!), this lovely young lady informed me that the gift wasn’t really from her... she was simply acting as the messenger for one of my readers who had taken note of my , um, ‘passing interest’ in coffee.

Coffee? OK, now she had my undivided attention!

It took a week of emailing back and forth for us to finally get our schedules in synch, but this past Friday afternoon I actually made it into Jerusalem and hooked up with Sarah.

Now, as most of you know, I consider myself somewhat of a coffee snob. This isn’t to say that I know the flavor and aroma characteristics of every bean from around the world or anything.  But being fairly well travelled, I was pretty sure that I was nominally familiar with every possible way to prepare coffee.

Or not.

This thoughtful gift turned out to be a special contraption for brewing Vietnamese Coffee!

Yes, you heard me.  Vietnamese. Coffee.

Go ahead and scoff, I’d never heard of it either.

Lucky for me (and now you) the generous reader who sent me the thoughtful gift has also created a 100% non-commercial website called ‘www.howtobrewcoffee.com’. There you can find out how to make nearly every type of coffee under the sun (notice I said NEARLY… since I’m not so sure of myself anymore)… including Vietnamese Coffee.

After giving my new toy a quick wash and rinse Saturday night, I went to his website to find out how to use the thing. Very clear directions with pictures and diagrams are the rule over at howtobrewcoffee.com (crucial for ADD cases like myself), and within a few minutes I was enjoying a new (and very potent) variation on the much-loved hot caffeine infusion.

Did I mention that I kinda sorta [heart] this guy?

As if I didn’t already consider him a personal hero, it turns out he lives in Boston!

A New Englander and a coffee hound??? Be still my caffeinated heart! Next time I get back to the states I will simply have to look this guy up.

For the time being, there’s no danger of this cute little device crowding out my faithful French Press Pot for the task of brewing my morning ‘cuppa’. The Vietnamese process doesn’t allow the large-scale coffee output on which the successful start of my day depends.

But for an after-dinner treat or a small demitasse ‘pick-me-up’ during the afternoon? Just plop one of those cone shaped hats on my head and dress me in some loose black pajamas ‘cause I’m goin’ Vietnamese! [open invitation to anyone who wants to use their PhotoShop skills to make this scary mental image a reality]

Think you’re a coffee snob? Go on over and learn a thing or three from a true coffee master.