by Lavanya Pathmanaban
I was five years old and had tagged along with Paati to our neighbour’s engagement. We sat on floor mats along with 70 other neighbours and waited to see Sathya akka all decked up as a resplendent bride-to be. We were waiting and waiting and I was about to fall asleep, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I half opened my eyes to see Kuppu holding a plate full of dainty tumblers, all polished, sparkling steel and half-filled with fresh, sugared filter coffee. I was hungry and I gingerly took a tumbler, even as I heard Paati say aloud “Oh! She does not like coffee”. I chose to ignore her words. I took my first sip of it and fell in love. The intoxicating taste of filter coffee with that extra pinch of sugar – it felt like a rocket that shook the very existence of my being.
The next incident around coffee that I remember was six years after my first taste of coffee. My friends and I, all sixth graders, were waiting for the grand entry of our geography teacher – Mr. Janardhanan. He would drink coffee at the canteen and walk straight into 6 G. Prim and proper me, used to sit in the front row and get drowned in the stench of stale coffee as the roll call was taken. So, Mr. Janardhanan inadvertently murdered both my love for geography and coffee. I took a solemn promise then, to never drink coffee and more importantly never, ever to marry a guy who drank coffee. Ah! Little did I realise life’s quaint humour then!
This love/hate relationship with coffee continued till grade 10. I was never really sure whether I liked it or not. There were times when it was just too hot, too bitter or too sweet, and I reluctantly found my way back to chocolaty Bournvita instead. However, the second chapter in year 10 Physics book – “The four stroke cylinder and the crank shaft” set my opinion straight. I needed caffeine to keep me awake and then started the ritual of drinking coffee before I opened my Physics book. This soon became a necessity before I opened the Maths book too. Eventually, my morning began with coffee, then there was 3:30 pm coffee, 5 pm coffee and 7 pm coffee and before exams 10 pm coffee.
A favourite ritual would be to accompany dad to get freshly ground coffee from Coffee Day, an indulgent mixture of Arabica coffee seeds and Peaberry, roasted and ground, to be sealed in an ancient coffee tin which mom had inherited from some old-aged relative. Every day, I would feel the rich aroma of dense coffee as the hot water bubbled atop the coffee powder in the tiered filter. I would wait for Paati or mom to sprint like P.T Usha, at the sound of milk boiling, frothing up with a hiss, to turn the stove off. I would sometimes hear an almost unintelligible swear word that escaped their lips if they were too late. The swish of hot milk mixed with the decoction and a bit of sugar was nothing short of ethereal bliss.
As a college student, I decided to write a feature on Café Coffee day for my creative writing project. Walking through the glass door, I saw the world of filter coffee replaced by latte, cappuccino and frappes in giant cups. This set the tone for countless trips to Café Coffee day, chatting with my Stella Maris friends and paying 40 Rupees for a large cup of mocha and oohing and aahing about the wonder of creamy coffee. A few years later, my fiancé and I often met there – I’d managed to find a coffee companion despite my sixth grade disdain.
My relationship with coffee only grew stronger through the years and founds its way into my Sydney kitchen – in the form of a percolator.
A year of percolator and café coffees followed. I was sick of ordering customised lattes or the milky flat whites with a long line of instructions: “Make it strong – double the usual shot, extra hot, don’t froth the milk and add three sugars”. Despite the reading on the coffee machine that said – “if you are not happy with the way coffee is made – we will fix it / we won’t charge it” – I often wondered if the Italian coffee machine owned by the Asian lady in a quintessential Aussie suburb could ever make coffee to satisfy my south Indian palate.
Coffee was never the way I liked it. I missed the traditional, south Indian filter coffee.
Which was why I was in absolute shock when I read a Facebook status proclaiming the opening of Saravana Bhavan in Sydney. It was one of my most memorable moments of 2014. I liked it and shared it on Facebook and spent the rest of the day drooling for the taste of south Indian filter coffee in the small davara tumbler, with just the right amount of decoction. My craving was amply supported by my husband, a quintessential Tam-Brahm; pint-sized coffee was the be all and end all of his life.
Over a month we made frequent trips to Hotel Saravana Bhavan. This slowly reduced to weekend trips and after that it was, well, just too far!
Then came George Clooney with his gorgeous face plastered on the side of the city bus, next to a pixie-sized Nespresso machine delivering liquid gold. Coffee suddenly looked sexy! The analyst in me took over: 65 cents for a pod – 40 pods a month – 26 dollars a month was nothing compared to $3.50 for my downstairs cafe coffee every morning or the $4.50 for the weak, extra-hot Star Bucks flat white.
However, I did forget to add the coffee machine cost to my numbers!!
Anyway, I waited for the perfect moment – Father’s Day. I was sure Ramesh would love a coffee machine. I trudged all the way to Myer to find the perfect coffee machine. Not too big, not white, light weight, with a milk frothing jug and white LED lights. It even came with a set of coffee pods – a selection of 40 beautiful colourful pods – different flavours.
Upon reaching home, I gleefully tossed the Ratna store coffee percolator into the garage, while hubby unwrapped the gift. He eyed the coffee machine suspiciously, but was quick to realise that Father’s Day gifts rarely ever made it to the exchange counter. A brave smile danced on his face as his contempt for George Clooney far outweighed his enthusiasm for homemade café coffee. Roma, Indriya , Lungo or Expresso did not appeal to his filter coffee sensibility. However, we decided to go through each pod and make note of what we particularly liked. I stuck to Nespresso intensity 8 while Ramesh hit the high note with 10.
Soon all our friends were treated to a cup of frothy Nespresso whenever they were home. When some of them stopped coming home, we blamed the dog. In the supermarket we stuck to aisle 3 in Aldi, 6 in Woolworths and 8 in Coles – the ones where the coffee pods were stocked. We tried all variations of coffee pods and continued to make note.
After eight weeks of trying various coffee pods, we were almost ready to find a small space in our garden to grow our own coffee.
At this point, we seriously contemplated tossing the Nespresso into the garage. But we hit a stroke of luck. We got to know that Nespresso made limited edition coffees at 90 cents per pod. Why not give it a shot, I thought. Ramesh couldn’t be bothered any longer. At my insistence, Malabar Monsoon and Cuban Havana got delivered to our house on our very own Nespresso coffee card.
And lucky we were, indeed, for we had cracked the magic code – a shot of Roma and a shot of Malabar Monsoon was deliciously close to filter coffee in our coffee pod world!
Our coffee price more than doubled per cup but finally, here was coffee – as we liked it!
Pic by https://www.flickr.com/photos/ragsclicks/
Witty, simple yet gripping!