This is a story about coffee and life.
“Life is like a sumptuous feast, those who do not know how to enjoy coffee would waste away in...
This is a story about coffee and life.
“Life is like a sumptuous feast, those who do not know how to enjoy coffee would waste away in starvation.”
Since the day PING met DOUDOU, a girl who loved Mandheling coffee, his life became intertwined with coffee. DOUDOU was his first love and together they shared the bittersweet experience of her dream being shattered.
A sensitive girl who cherished art, DOUDOU ran a coffee shop with her father whom she greatly admired. Having no mother, DOUDOU was very much influenced by her father; like her obsession with coffee. She kept a ‘coffee notebook’ which was like her personal diary. In it she recorded the coffee tales her father had told her throughout the years to which she would illustrate with beautiful drawings. One of them was the romantic love story of her parents. In her colorful drawings, her father and mother were perfect noble characters somewhat similar to those in a fairy tale.
With the sudden death of her father, DOUDOU came to realize the harsh brutal reality of betrayal and desertion hidden behind the romantic tale she fantasized. DOUDOU’s mother, JOJO was an unhappily married woman when she met DOUDOU’s father and had an affair with him. She betrayed her husband and stayed with DOUDOU’s father for the selfish sake of love. However, not long after DOUDOU was born, JOJO suddenly realized that the romantic feeling had gone and she missed her husband and son very much. She finally came to the difficult decision of abandoning DOUDOU and her father to return to her original family.
It was impossible for DOUDOU to understand her mother’s decision and she harbored deep grudges and hatred towards her. The beautiful romantic dream she had cherished for years was totally shattered by this harsh cruel reality. Her father had kept this secret within himself all the years for the sake of protecting her. Being a gentleman with a big heart, he respected JOJO’s decision and left her alone by burying his love deep inside his heart.
With her dream utterly shattered, DOUDOU’s self esteem was seriously hurt. She found herself debased as the daughter abandoned by a selfish infidel woman, no longer noble or perfect. Breaking down with frustration and loss, she had sex with PING. Yet the experience was bad. And their love relationship sadly came to an end along with the sex. So was the fate of their first love.
8 years passed. PING has become a research writer on coffee traveling around the world and got a very devoted girlfriend JING. However he was still very much weighed down upon by his aborted first love. When the spark of love remained non-extinguished, it had a chance of being rekindled. Guided by the Mandheling coffee, PING and DOUDOU were destined to meet again.
However, things could never be the same again. DOUDOU was now a married woman. Her husband, though not being the perfect cup of coffee DOUDOU desired, was nevertheless a nice guy. Eight years ago when her relationship with PING ended, she closed down the coffee shop and went away to Tainan to stay with her aunt. There she met this nice guy, got married and continued to run a coffee shop. However, the life she was leading was bland and far from what she wanted.
All because of coffee, DOUDOU and PING crossed paths again. Yet both of them were under great pressure given the respective relationship they were in. The two decided to run away, to a faraway coffee kingdom. There in a foreign land, they seemed to be able to free themselves and rekindle their love for one another. The taste of love was no longer bitter but sweet again.
Sweetness in life was, however short-lived. They could not escape from reality for long. PING had a responsibility for JING and the child while DOUDOU would never let herself follow the footsteps of her mother. She decided to take fate into her own hands.
In the long journey into life, two people’s paths cross, then split and carry on in their own ways. Years later they meet again and share with one another their taste of life. Bitter, sweet, acidic or aromatic, taste of life is just like the taste of coffee.
