In my part of the world, for ages unfathomed, "Tea please," used to be the most probable and ideal response most of our guests would give to the question - "What will you have - tea or coffee?". In fact, it was so customary, that so many days had passed between our coffee purchase and the dawn of its use that, forget the expiry date, we couldn't even read the brand name on our coffee bottle.
When we finally got the 'I'll have coffee' response from an uncle, the talk of the household was that, "Now that this person is a proven menace to the society, we should cut off all ties with him." Almost agreeing with our worries, we found that the monsoon moisture had devoured a better part of the coffee and had left a symbolic lump in the throat of the coffee bottle. It was to our pleasant reprieve when the uncle's wife said, "Don't worry. He doesn't really know what real coffee tastes like and you might even pass off tea as coffee and he'll remark, "It's quite strong. Just the way I like it.' I have even given him Bournvita and have still managed to extract exactly the same response."
Having grown up in a household that's so passionately hostile to coffee, it's nothing short of a shame that I do not quite recollect when or how I had my first cup of coffee. But my guess is that, like a first time adoration for a movie star, it must have happened sometime during a night of intensely educational rote learning. Or it could have simply been a whim of the curious that made me have a hot liquid version of the coffee toffee. When I lived away from home, coffee was what my day began with. The love grew stronger with the strength of the coffee and every cup was a toast to the seemingly never-ending affair.
Corporate offices introduced me to machine coffee. Whoa! You hold a cup under a coffee tap, press a button and bhzzzzzzzzz the coffee pours out. Besides, there's nobody to keep a track of how many cups you gulp down in a day. Is the idea of heaven built around the concept of coffee machine? How about I get a tap diverted to my desk? The excitement of machine coffee died down with the first sip. It was as if tea was being jealous of coffee and was pouring itself out of the designated outlet. Sometimes it was just cardamom water. Sigh, the betrayal.
It wasn't long before I got sucked into one of the coffee cafes. I kept thinking why'd anybody start a coffee cafes business. Aren't the roadside folks making great coffee already? Living in a cave meant I had an unashamed and complete lack of knowledge of types of coffee and the sort of experience people look for while indulging in the horrendous act of meeting each other. I don't remember whom I met the first time I visited a coffee shop, but I quite remember the coffee. It was nice and creamy though extremely costly. It had a weird shape made of cream on top of it. For a moment, I kept wondering whether it's a heart or a butt.
I dislike the concept of coffee shops. They make a nice place to listen to loud music and look at college kids bursting with energy enough to giggle non-stop for a day. But they're not a great place to have coffee. I'd be a liar if I say that their coffee isn't nice. There have been times when their coffee was so good that it is with my tongue that I've rolled out money notes from my wallet.
Then there's this seemingly never-ending global experiment that goes around in an effort to obtain a nearly perfect coffee from mixing the contents of coffee sachets, milk powder and hot water. This happens when you are trapped in the murk of airports, airplanes or costly hotels. You take the coffee powder, milk powder and hot water in any proportion and in any order and, without failure, you end up with something that tastes utterly horrible.
I don't understand people who compare coffee with tea. Of course, taste is a matter of personal choice but really, tea lovers, how can you even love tea? That too when you have to have biscuits to go along with it. Thankfully, coffee has no such rotten partners to spoil its effect. The taste-buds of people who have cookies, cakes or pastries with coffee deserve all the sympathy from the universe.
It may be as useless as any other form of love but my love for coffee has offered me the answer to the hypothetical question, 'What would you do if you had only an hour to live?'. I'd grab my cup and sit out in the garden looking at the trees. Rainfall and a Gulzar song would be such a beautiful combination to go with the setting. It'd be quite magical how one'd move the spoon in the cup and feel the soul stirring.
When we finally got the 'I'll have coffee' response from an uncle, the talk of the household was that, "Now that this person is a proven menace to the society, we should cut off all ties with him." Almost agreeing with our worries, we found that the monsoon moisture had devoured a better part of the coffee and had left a symbolic lump in the throat of the coffee bottle. It was to our pleasant reprieve when the uncle's wife said, "Don't worry. He doesn't really know what real coffee tastes like and you might even pass off tea as coffee and he'll remark, "It's quite strong. Just the way I like it.' I have even given him Bournvita and have still managed to extract exactly the same response."
Having grown up in a household that's so passionately hostile to coffee, it's nothing short of a shame that I do not quite recollect when or how I had my first cup of coffee. But my guess is that, like a first time adoration for a movie star, it must have happened sometime during a night of intensely educational rote learning. Or it could have simply been a whim of the curious that made me have a hot liquid version of the coffee toffee. When I lived away from home, coffee was what my day began with. The love grew stronger with the strength of the coffee and every cup was a toast to the seemingly never-ending affair.
Corporate offices introduced me to machine coffee. Whoa! You hold a cup under a coffee tap, press a button and bhzzzzzzzzz the coffee pours out. Besides, there's nobody to keep a track of how many cups you gulp down in a day. Is the idea of heaven built around the concept of coffee machine? How about I get a tap diverted to my desk? The excitement of machine coffee died down with the first sip. It was as if tea was being jealous of coffee and was pouring itself out of the designated outlet. Sometimes it was just cardamom water. Sigh, the betrayal.
It wasn't long before I got sucked into one of the coffee cafes. I kept thinking why'd anybody start a coffee cafes business. Aren't the roadside folks making great coffee already? Living in a cave meant I had an unashamed and complete lack of knowledge of types of coffee and the sort of experience people look for while indulging in the horrendous act of meeting each other. I don't remember whom I met the first time I visited a coffee shop, but I quite remember the coffee. It was nice and creamy though extremely costly. It had a weird shape made of cream on top of it. For a moment, I kept wondering whether it's a heart or a butt.
I dislike the concept of coffee shops. They make a nice place to listen to loud music and look at college kids bursting with energy enough to giggle non-stop for a day. But they're not a great place to have coffee. I'd be a liar if I say that their coffee isn't nice. There have been times when their coffee was so good that it is with my tongue that I've rolled out money notes from my wallet.
Then there's this seemingly never-ending global experiment that goes around in an effort to obtain a nearly perfect coffee from mixing the contents of coffee sachets, milk powder and hot water. This happens when you are trapped in the murk of airports, airplanes or costly hotels. You take the coffee powder, milk powder and hot water in any proportion and in any order and, without failure, you end up with something that tastes utterly horrible.
I don't understand people who compare coffee with tea. Of course, taste is a matter of personal choice but really, tea lovers, how can you even love tea? That too when you have to have biscuits to go along with it. Thankfully, coffee has no such rotten partners to spoil its effect. The taste-buds of people who have cookies, cakes or pastries with coffee deserve all the sympathy from the universe.
It may be as useless as any other form of love but my love for coffee has offered me the answer to the hypothetical question, 'What would you do if you had only an hour to live?'. I'd grab my cup and sit out in the garden looking at the trees. Rainfall and a Gulzar song would be such a beautiful combination to go with the setting. It'd be quite magical how one'd move the spoon in the cup and feel the soul stirring.
