His Quest For The Perfect Cup Of Coffee Ends And Thanks to This Little Equipment!

Being a coffee person is one thing and being “mad about coffee” is quite another. No coffee can taste good, if it does not first enlivens the nostrils with its peculiar aroma and coffee drinkers who live by that rule undoubtedly belong to the latter lot. He is a die-hard coffee addict; although I can speak little about his love for coffee before marriage, I've witnessed different stages of his quest for that perfect cup over the past 6 years! Today when he is sipping that perfect blend to his heart’s content, I am finally at peace – yes, I really don’t have to see those expressions or hear those comments, every time he drinks that “just okay” cup! And I think, I've got to give credit to this little equipment that finally put all worries to rest!

He is a coffee person; I wrote about this in another post of mine titled “There Are Tea Drinkers and Then There AreCoffee Drinkers”. I can hardly recollect his love for coffee during the first year of marriage; may be then I was his only love, or so I like to believe! :P However, I do remember that he was never too fond of the instant coffee variety, until he found solace in “beaten coffee”. I didn't know what beaten coffee was, until I met this coffee freak and I finally learned it from a Russian returned friend of his; in a glass beat together a teaspoon of coffee powder with a teaspoon and a half of sugar, and a couple of tablespoons of hot boiled milk until frothy, and pour a glass of hot boiled milk over it for a flavourful cup of frothy coffee. It’s good but not the best and here is why - the quality depends a lot on the brand, and getting the same quality throughout is the hardest task.

A year and half after our marriage, he got transferred to Singapore, all the way from Vizag, a little town in Southern India; oh yes, I played lady luck in disguise for him, there’s no other way this would've happened, believe me! The land of all things desirable and many international brands; he had enough choices and somehow got hooked to Starbucks but in the long run loved Kopi even better. Now what is Kopi? That’s what they call coffee in Singapore and there are different versions of it – Kopi-C is coffee with evaporated milk, Kopi-O is coffee with sugar only, and so on. By the time we moved out, which was after two years, his coffee drinking standards had gone high, I mean, real high! So we ended up carrying a couple of packets with coffee sachets/bags, but only to realize that those weren't meant for the Indian way of making coffee. In India we use full fat milk and not evaporated or any other variety for making tea or coffee. So two years since we moved and the second transfer since, we still have one of those packets unopened; no he won’t use it ever, but he won’t throw it either!   Yes, I’m myself asking, why?

It was around that time I gifted him a CC Day coffee machine (yes, I did show off a bit on FB posting pictures and all that) and their Pure Arabica capsules are to die for (not for me though)!  In addition to that, he also purchased a milk frother to complete the coffee drinking experience. For a year he put the equipment to good use, and enjoyed that perfect blend of frothy coffee in every other cup. About a year back we got transferred to Wellington, Tamil Nadu; the first thing he checked online was whether there was a CC Day outlet nearby and he was overjoyed to find one. However, it was truly heartbreaking to find that the outlet did not keep stock of Pure Arabica and it was even more heartbreaking for me to see the coffee machine sitting idle in a corner for the past 10 months. I have a feeling that now that he has found a better and simple one, this one will stay so forever! :-(

That’s when he realized TN happens to be the land of awesome coffees in India. Yes, you guessed it right, his quest for the perfect cup started once again!

He may have tried some ten different brands of coffee, instant as well as normal, common brands like Bru, Nestle, Sunrise as well as the not so common ones, like the factory blends that the Nilgiris is famous for. Some had decent aroma, while certain others tasted good, but getting that perfect blend of smell and taste never happened. A couple of weeks back, while shopping at a nearby supermarket, we came across Cothas Coffee, a brand we haven’t heard till then. We were looking for a non filter coffee version, an instant one and the shopkeeper said, this one is so. Moreover, the pack smelled great. However, the granules were too fine and it didn't look like instant coffee material. Nevertheless, we tried making it the other way round, by putting the coffee powder into the boiling milk. First few cups were just okay, but something that kept us going was that this one somehow gave that blend of smell and taste, although not perfect.

He pondered and pondered, and finally one evening bought home this wonderful piece of equipment… Tada…!

Yes, a simple filter that makes the awesome decoction for the perfect blend; Madras is known for its filter coffee!  A typical filter has two compartments – the upper compartment, which is ideally a filter with a presser and a lid, and the lower compartment where the decoction is collected. A very simple device, even then we managed to operate it wrong the first time. :P

Two Compartments of the Filter

Parts of Upper Compartment

So for all those coffee lovers, here is the recipe for that perfect blend of smell and taste in a cup, in case you haven’t tried it already.

YOU NEED: 

Boiling water, 1/2 glass

Cothas coffee powder, 2 teaspoons, heaped (or any other filter coffee brand)

Milk, ¾ glass (you may add less than ¼ glass water to ½ glass or more of full fat milk)

Sugar, 1 ¼ to  1 ½ teaspoon, or according to taste

Filter 

HOW TO: 

Remove the lid and presser from the upper compartment of filter and add coffee power. 

Here's where you add coffee powder

Secure the presser and pour boiling water. Ideally, you should pour boiling water right out of stove. 

Once the powder is added, secure with presser and pour hot water over it

Close with lid and let the decoction settle in the lower compartment. 

Finally cover with lid for water to remain hot as it drips down the coffee powder and the filter

In the meanwhile, boil milk along with sugar in the stove. By the time milk boils, you will have enough decoction to make a cup of super awesome coffee. Once the milk is boiled, strain it into a larger vessel, add the decoction, making sure you check the colour change. The more the decoction, the darker the colour turns and stronger the coffee would be. 

Now comes the best part - the typical “coffee-stall” style of making frothy coffee. Take a glass or another vessel and pour the coffee from one vessel to the other, when making sure, the vessels are as far apart, vertically, so that coffee when collected in the lower vessel will turn frothy. I know it sounds confusing and soon I will share a pic!

Finally, pour the coffee into a mug, remember to use the same frothing technique here and that’s it! Your perfect cup of aromatic and tasty coffee is ready. Drink to your heart’s glory!!! 

Did I tell you, I still make better filter coffee than him? Well, I can’t help it but I have that “Midas touch”! :P