Wake up! Smell the (filter) coffee!

Picture this…you wake up in the morning, feeling lazy from all-night conversations with the world’s best friends you can have, and wish you could sleep just 5 minutes more. At this point, the aroma of freshly-filtered coffee, hits you…yumm… Can life be any better? Make no mistake; this is one area in which I am unabashedly a South Indian Brahmin. Freshly brewed filter coffee early in the morning (ok…even if it’s at 9) is something I’d kill for.

Food is something that I absolutely love. While I wouldn’t call myself a foodie (it seems to be becoming a bad word), I definitely enjoy food, of any and every kind. As long as it’s edible and doesn’t contain remains of any dead animals or sea creatures, I’ll eat it. Friends fail to see what is so special about freshly brewed filter kaapi.

Yesterday, a colleague said he didn’t see why I was so insistent on filter coffee. “Actually, decaf Nescafe is almost as good.” I nearly screamed in agony at the comparison between something so obviously tasteless as decaffeinated coffee and the wonderful Kumbakonam degree coffee. I mean, how can anyone be so insensitive? And what’s the point in drinking coffeeless coffee? That’s obviously what decaffeinated coffee is all about. Coffee without coffee.

Oh yes. I am puritan when it comes to food. Freshly-brewed (preferably freshly-ground) Kumbakonam filter coffee, dosas made from homemade batter, Thengai Sevai (what people so creatively call rice noodles) made painstakingly using the large bronze sevai naazhi at home. I’d die to have any of this. And yes! How could I forget? Rasam made in an Eeya Sombu (tin vessel) over embers of coal that takes ages to heat (but the taste is fabulous, so who cares?). Sundakkai sambar made in a Kalchetti (stone vessel), eaten with hot rice and potato poriyal made in a mud pot! Ok. I stop here. I am hungry!