Most coffee lovers, including some south Indians, aren’t familiar with every secret of filter coffee. Two men are about to change that

What happens when a Bihari experiments with filter coffee? He thinks he can make the coffee without a filter.

That’s not funny. That’s blasphemous, if you are a Tam-Bram.

Arvind Srinivas finds it hard to hold back the chuckle when he recounts a conversation he recently had with TP Mishra, a customer from Kandivli (E), who had called him to order half a kilo of Kumbakonam coffee. “When I asked him if he had a filter brewer, he said, ‘I will add the powder to boiling water, let it simmer for a while and filter it’!”

Mehta is just the sort of client Srinivas, a creative director at a media firm, is looking for.

He finds time away from his day job to help Mumbaikars appreciate south Indian filter coffee, especially the famous Kumbakonam degree variety. The two-month-old business he runs with partner Parameshwar K R involves sourcing coffee powder from Kumbakonam, a temple town in Tamil Nadu that has been the hub of filter coffee since pre-Independence, delivering it to Mumbai homes and inculcating the art of appreciating good coffee.

“The locals would trickle into the main coffee centre as early as 5.30 am to get their first cup,” Srinivas says about the town, even as the aroma of a fresh brew wafts from the kitchen of his Kandivli home, where wife Savitri, an advocate at the High Court, is busy.

Degree coffee, he says, is nothing but coffee made mixing fresh, undiluted cow’s milk and the first batch of decoction. Of course, everything about the brew — starting from the beans — needs to be just perfect.

When the couple moved to Mumbai from Pondicherry in 1990, they spent a good part of their time hunting for authentic coffee powder. “I scoured Matunga stores, but my wife insisted it wasn’t good enough. Another brand available in Andheri, was according to her innu mosham (worse),” he says.

A quick call to a friend who owns a coffee shop on Kamakshi Josiyar Street in Kumbakonam, solved the problem. The beans for this powder, like any other, are sourced from the Coffee Board of India, which gathers stock from coffee plantations around Coorg and Ooty. What, however, makes this coffee special is the lack of chicory — powder of roasted tap root — which is usually mixed with the ground beans to add colour to the coffee. But it could end hampering the flavour. “Some coffee drinkers are so used to chicory because it makes the brew strong, they specifically ask for it. One customer from Thane asked me to source coffee powder with 21 per cent chicory; no more, no less,” Srinivas laughs.

“For years, we had been visiting Srinivas and realised that the coffee at his place tasted better than anywhere else, so we thought we should teach the rest of the city how to make a proper cup,” adds Parameshwar.

The other factor that differentiates great coffee from average is the method of roasting the beans. “Roasting them on a skillet isn’t enough. Traditionally, the beans were roasted in a closed cylinder that rotated constantly. A small opening on one side allowed grannies to check if the beans were ready before they were ground,” he says.

But, before you give him a tinkle for the coffee (Rs 550 per kg, delivered anywhere in Mumbai within seven days), figuring how to make the perfect cup is important.

Fill half the percolator in the stainless steel coffee brewer with the powder. “It can be more, but never less,” pitches in Savitri. Pour boiling water into the filter and place the lid to ensure the aroma and flavour don’t escape. The decoction should always be hot. “If by evening, it cools down, don’t heat it directly or after mixing it with milk — that kills the taste. Instead, place the decoction in a small vessel and slip it into a container holding boiling water. It will get warm without losing its essence,” he adds. Then, there is the slight detail of how to drink the coffee. Fancy mugs don’t work. It’s the davara-tumbler utensil combination you need to invest in, and pour the coffee back and forth before taking a sip. “It gives the coffee a good froth while enhancing its taste. It is essential to the coffee-making process,” Srinivas adds.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Life & Style> Food> Filter Coffee / by Gitanjali Chandrasekharan, Mumbai Mirror / August 04th, 2013