Thailand: 70 years of traditional brew
鈥� A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
CHACHOENGSAO, THAILAND 鈥� 鈥淕randpa鈥� Lee scoops ground coffee into a long sock and slowly pours boiling water through it into a pan. He then decants the rich brew through another stockinglike filter into a tumbler.
He takes an appraising sip and nods. Another cup of kafe boran, or traditional Thai-style coffee, is ready. Customers can drink it straight or syrupy-sweet with lashings of caramel and condensed milk.
Lee Sata, or 鈥淧ae鈥� (鈥済randpa鈥�) Lee, brews coffee the same way he鈥檚 done it for 72 years 鈥� and in the same cramped plywood shop where he began serving it in 1937.
Back then he was 14, and coffee was a novelty drink in Thailand. Today, Bangkok alone has 89 Starbucks. Yet thanks to its old-world charm, the elderly Chinese-Thai man鈥檚 brew is a popular curiosity.
Coffee lovers from Bangkok, including the rich and famous, flock to Pae Lee鈥檚 coffee shop with its six round tables ringed by wooden stools at Klong Suan Market, a century-old riverside bazaar in neighboring Chachoengsao Province.
Wearing a white singlet, the diminutive coffeemaker greets visitors with a thumbs up and a boyish grin before disappearing into the tiny partitioned-off kitchen with its blackened walls to tend to his coffee-making tools: saucepans, cooking pots, and sock filters.
Other customer favorites include oliang iced coffee: It鈥檚 a blend of coffee, corn, and soybeans that鈥檚 liberally sweetened before being poured into a plastic bag of shaved ice to be slurped with a straw on the go.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 plan to make coffee all my life,鈥� Pae Lee says. 鈥淏ut my shop became popular as a meeting place for the local community.鈥� He was born in the shop, sleeps upstairs, and still starts work at 5 a.m. He never takes a day off.
鈥淚 love making it,鈥� he says.
