Having run out of South Indian filter coffee recently, I ran around the small city of Chandigarh looking for some readymade decoction that could keep me going for a few weeks. But alas, no one in the city knew what filter coffee was, let alone having a pouch of decoction to sell. But just when I had lost all hope, my best friends sent me a couple of bags of the most authentic South Indian filter coffee powder, a brand new filter coffee press, and a bag of fresh murukku! As I opened the bag of coffee that my friends got roasted and ground especially for me by a Chennai store, the sweet aroma of fresh coffee brought back a flood of memories that took me back to the seven years I spent in South India before I moved to Chandigarh following the outbreak of COVID-19.
I knew little about coffee before I moved to Manipal in coastal Karnataka to study engineering. My experiments with coffee began with a shoddy mix of boiled instant coffee and frothy milk passed of as espresso at a Punjabi wedding in the late 1990s when serving coffee after dinner used to be a fad and symbol of wealth. Growing older, my uninitiated, teenage self fell in love with an oversweet iced coffee that a national "fast-coffee" chain misleadingly called Kaapi Nirvana. It was only in Manipal, where our hostel mess served strong-smelling coffee in small, steel tumblers, that I tasted the purity of South Indian filter coffee. I knew not then what one had to do with the small bowl that accompanied the glass, but I had finally tasted Kaapi and knew what Nirvana was. My trysts with coffee found me trying French Press and Dalgona coffee long before they became Internet sensations. But nothing gives me more peace than a piping hot cup of South Indian filter coffee.
Locked down in Chandigarh, I missed filter coffee, and even tried some of the new, readymade filter coffee decoction that are available online. They make a good cup of filter coffee, almost as authentic as the ones I used to love having in South India, and perfect for post-lunch Zoom calls to keep drowsiness at bay. But on weekends, I start my days by brewing a cup of perfect coffee, patiently watching the decoction come to life, which also creates the perfect crucible for some creative brainwaves to visit me. A friend of mine recently taught me how to photograph filter coffee for posting pictures on Instagram — the coffee must be poured into the steel glass from a height to get a bubbly froth that would make anyone weak in the knees. Top this off with a few drops of the decoction, and your filter coffee is picture-perfect. For my friends and relatives reading this, you now know what to gift me!
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