Dark Elixir

As I surveyed the hot liquid in my cup, I felt contented. The coffee that I held in my hand had turned out really well. I had recently purchased some peaberry coffee that seemed to match the Coorg variety closely and had been roasted to the perfect shade of brown. I had then ground up a handful and made the brew in the traditional south Indian filter. Adding hot milk to this resulted in the highly satisfying collaboration that was as close to the classic Chennai filter coffee as I could get and sent me down memory lane.

When I was young, some days I would be up early and get to watch my mother make coffee. Brewing coffee demanded a careful and exacting process. She would first pass the top half of the filter a couple of times over the open flame to ensure that the pores were not clogged. After that, she would place the required measure of coffee powder into the filter and compact it lightly with her fingers. This will be covered by the loose plunger over the powder to hold it in place. Then she would boil water and add the boiling water to the filter ever so gently using a ladle. After that, you had to wait for the decoction to drip down to the bottom half of the filter. During this time, she would put the milk on the stove to boil and continue with her regular morning routine of singing bhajans or other songs. Coffee was strictly for the grown-ups then and I did not get to taste it till a few years later. But I used to be fascinated by the coffee-making process and was content to sit and watch. And I still recall some of the songs mother used to sing.

Getting the beans roasted and ground at the local coffee store was itself a thrilling experience. Which young boy will not be thrilled by the big commercial roasters and grinders at the store! The whir, the heat and the aroma in these places is simply enchanting. I can remember carrying freshly ground coffee, packed in non-porous wax paper bag and still warm, back home after purchasing it from one of these shops.

There was a time when we lived in the foothills of the Western Ghats where we could buy the beans pretty much off the plantation. We used to roast them at home using a drum-shaped roaster that had to be turned by hand over a coal fire. The whole house smelled like a coffee shop then. We also had a hand mill to grind the roast. When you combined the brew from this process with fresh milk heated to the right temperature, you could count on a heavenly cup of coffee.

Coffee does not have the long history of tea, but it has certainly captured the world market despite its relatively recent entrance. It seems that we owe the discovery of coffee to some enterprising goatherds in Ethiopia several centuries ago. Upon noticing an unusual perkiness in their goats, they deduced that it arose from ingesting the berries of a certain bush. This itself is an amazing feat, considering that goats will eat almost anything. They then decided that what was good for the goats was good for the (adventurous) goatherds. To cut a long story short, it was a small bite for a goat but a giant gulp for mankind.

Tea was introduced into India by the British, but coffee came before that. The story of its arrival in India and subsequent cultivation sounds like 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. It is said that a pilgrim named Baba Budan smuggled seven coffee beans out of Yemen after falling for the coffee he tasted there. Yes, he had to smuggle the seeds because the Arabs, who controlled the coffee market then, did not allow the export of seeds. It was perhaps a strange thing to do after a pilgrimage, but I think he had the right idea. Anyway, he planted the seeds in the hills of Karnataka and the rest is history.

When I first came to America, I was in for a rude shock. I just was not ready for drip coffee. The only kind of coffee I drank then was good, South Indian, well, I should just say Indian filter coffee, since there is no North Indian filter coffee. The drip coffee was served with a white powder (non-dairy creamer) which never seemed to dissolve well. Back then, you did not have the now ubiquitous Starbucks and other coffee shops. Drip coffee was pretty much all you got. I used to marvel at those who drank it black. And even more at those who drank decaffeinated coffee with non-dairy creamer and artificial sweetener. I mean, at that point, could you even call it coffee?

Anyway, my first taste of drip coffee was pretty bad. I might have given up on it altogether but then I tried tea the next time. It was far worse and could only be placed, I imagine, slightly above dish water. Teabags that have been sitting open to the elements, with tepid water to steep them in, are an insult to serious tea drinkers. So I gave up on drinking tea in restaurants entirely and decided to give the local coffee brew another try. I must admit that I was able to get used to it slowly, especially with actual milk or half-and-half. It took some time before I was able to appreciate coffee in different formats.

Fortunately, America has had a coffee explosion in the last twenty or so years. Myriads of hot and cold coffees of various gourmet varieties are now available practically at every corner. One can get one's coffee made to specifications, whether 'one-shot, low-fat, non-foam latte' or 'non-fat, double-shot, low-foam mocha'. But my favorite still remains the filter coffee of my erstwhile home. I end with this link to an article, Meter Long Coffee, which I think is a fine tribute to that dark elixir that I miss very much.

(Photo courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Filter_kaapi.JPG)