Waking Up To The Smell Of Coffee

By Ravichandran Vaidyanathan

When I get up every morning, my first thanks are to the Almighty for keeping me alive for another day and my second thanks is to my beloved wife for waking me up to the smell of coffee- filter coffee, that is!

For long, I had taken my morning coffee for granted. I thought concocting a decoction is no big deal…till the day I became an accidental coffee maker!

This is a 30-year-old story from my life. My wife had slipped in the bathroom and had a fall. She twisted her ankle and was advised 3 days of complete immobilization.

It dawned on me the next morning when I woke up - unsuspecting - at 6 AM that immobilization meant no kitchen chores for her, not even the brewing of coffee!

She was up but propped up against the head rest in the bed.

As if waiting for me to get up, she started her instructions… Ravi, I am sorry, you need to make the coffee today, do the decoction, take a small qty of milk and warm it… keep the gas burner in sim…

And happy with her instructions, she dozed off again!

Till then, I had been pampered and been waking up all my life to the smell of coffee… first my mother and then my significant other! While I was familiar with the coffee brewing ritual, I had not really ventured into it.

Anyway, I set about the coffee making process that morning, little realizing the ordeal that I would get into over the next half an hour!

My first challenge was to pick the right filter to be used. My wife was a “filter collector”. She had a repertoire of about 6 filter sets – big and small, with different “configurations”. Depending on the number of guests, composition of guests, fine or coarse powder, she would use the “appropriate” filter!

The problem was – the inventory of filters was all in “knocked down” condition… the top and bottom not in pairs but separate. I had to do a match-making of gleaming tops and bottoms and pick an appropriate one.

The second challenge was to locate the coffee powder can in the midst of so many unmarked cans of similar look! Kalyani…where is the coffee powder…? She gave the GPS locations in a sleepy and irritated tone!

Next, the right dose of powder. I picked my brain to recall my moments beside my wife and then hit upon the winning formula… 4 spoons of coffee powder … smother gently…spread evenly…Pour the boiling water over the powder, wait for all the steamy fuss of water to die down and then hear the decoction start dripping slowly into the bottom of the filter…Tok, Tok, Tok…! By the way, use the tong with care! And, ensure you don’t use a damp spoon…The coffee powder solidifies.

The smothering of the powder is very important in the quality of the decoction…too light and instead of a drip, it will be a pour… and the coffee will have too much of the suspended particles. Too tight a smother and it will take eternity for the powder to transform to decoction!

The tok, tok, tok sound is also vital. Just as a doctor diagnoses a healthy heart beat with his stethoscope, a good coffee maker determines the eventual quality of decoction with the steady tok, tok, tok. It’s important to listen carefully to the subtle drip sound and pick any irregular “beats”.

Too fast or too slow the drips, you will have to intervene with corrective action.

Now action swings to milk. You should have already kept it in the gas stove after you take off the boiling water. The experts like my wife time it to perfection … by the time they take the boiled milk off the stove, there is enough decoction collected in the bottom of the filter and ready to be “married” to the boiled milk! For me, the ordeal was not yet over.

Taking the decoction out of the bottom part means that the top part has to be separated from it. Sounds easy, eh? Even I thought so. I put the tong on the top part and tried to pull it… It was stubborn.

At the start of the operation, I had used force to fix it on top of the bottom part. It was now pay back time for the filter!

Realizing that the tong was probably not the right tool, I used the kitchen napkin, then again came back to tong... Finally, after a struggle, I took the filter apart and, in the bargain, spilled half of the decoction!

Luckily, it was still enough for 2 strong cups of coffee and I escaped further censure from my wife who was already getting impatient with the delay!

The percolator may be the western world’s answer to the humble South Indian filter, but for all its simplicity and authenticity, my vote is always for the filter. For me, it’s mankind’s greatest invention for the sheer pleasure, the stimulus it gives me when I sip a hot cup of filter coffee each time!

It’s strange how drinking 8 cups of water seems impossible but 8 cups of coffee go down like a chubby kid on a see-saw!

Coffee is a hug in a mug. Filter coffee a tight hug!

By Ravichandran Vaidyanathan