The Brew Beckons

The alarm that is set to wake me up every morning does not ring a bell. It, instead, lets out an invigorating aroma that wafts through the entire house which would even jumpstart a person in deep anaesthesia. That’s the magic of the brew my wife concocts in our kitchen every dawn that’s seductive to inhale and heavenly to sip! Filter coffee is instantaneously refreshing and therapeutically stimulating that it has, for ages, mesmerised both the connoisseur and the commoner alike and also everyone in between!

Cultivated to the level of a fine art, it is the filter that is central to the entire process of preparing this brand of coffee. A two layered vertical container with a top lid, the base of the upper compartment  of the coffee filter is minutely and evenly perforated and sit atop the lower one which is meant to collect the black liquor as it filters down. Copious spoonfuls of finely granulated coffee powder, which are at times freshly ground and dried, is packed on the upper part and steaming hot water is poured over it till the brim. The covered container is put aside till the hot water, penetrating through  the thick layer of the coffee powder, drips down, absorbing the essence of the coffee and its fragrance and collects as decoction in the lower portion. The decoction, a dark and highly viscous liquid, is the sum and substratum of the filter coffee business that sets its apart from other variants of the beverage.

And concocting a memorial cup of coffee is akin to creating a symphony, à la Beethoven, where the decoction is the central theme and other ingredients merge in to complete the perfect orchestra. And what makes the drink a classic, just as the symphony, is the right proportion and the sequence of these ingredients that compliment each other and present a wholesome experience of taste and texture. A little more of sugar and the alluring bitterness of coffee is lost and a little less of milk and the creaminess of the brew is compromised, the first one leaves a jarring sweet note and the other spoils the rhyme of the drink.  And as you finish the cup of a perfect filter coffee to the last froth, an ethereal taste lingers on your mouth for hours on end, just as the musical notes that plays on in your head much after the concert is over!

And the tradition of filter coffee has many a local variations, each having its own distinctiveness and of course, its own ardent followers. While in some regions, sugar has given way to jaggery while in others milk is totally done away and substituted with other creamy thickeners. Whatever be the different avatars, the filter coffee retains its pride of place just because the decoction remains a common denominator to all these versions.

But this art of brewing the filter coffee is fast losing its hold as we switch over to more lazy way of fixing the drink, with instant coffee powders and whiteners. It might just be so easy to make a cup of coffee, anywhere and anytime of the day but that’s not what the connoisseurs of the drink would ever bargain for, conveniences be what it is.  

There is only drink that can surpass the taste of a cup of filter coffee and that is a jar of filter coffee!  

Yours 

Narayanan