It is always an enjoyable experience to be in the coffee shop alone when it is crowded by the strangers. It is even better to be alone after the coffee shop closes in the midnight when the jazz piano is still playing in the background. In that ultimate quietness soaked with summer moisture air, the music comes to alive and intimate. I prefer to 50’s and 60’s Jazz, sentimental Bill Evans, mellow Frank Sinatra, sensual Julie London…

Coffee shops were never a staple of American culture until Starbucks. It is quintessentially a continental European tradition. However, American’s Jazz standard is made for coffee shop, for it is cosmopolitan, unsentimental, relaxing, unpredictable, sexy, clever and full of vanity and amusement.

For a wanderer, the world is home. Coffee shops are its hub around the world. A good cup of coffee is always secondary. Its strong flavour and darkness is the link to the humility and culture of a place in where all characters are exposed in their true color. Forgive me if I have to bash some popular coffee shops in China such as MAAN Coffee, where extravagant Chandeliers and pretentious wood tables and chairs betray what a shallow culture we live in.  

Enough negative things said to spoil a perfect moment, alone with Jazz in a coffee shop in the midnight. Relax in, it is a beauty.