CHENNAI: Chennai, since its Madras days, has always woken up to inhale the inebriating aroma of filter kaapi. This being the case, I set out to visit some of the oldest coffee houses and the hippest cafes in the city to see the evolution of the city through the pores of coffee filters.
In the linear Triplicane High Road, dotted with shops, sporting an old world charm, lies the famous Triplicane Ratna Cafe. I approach Prabhu, the 22-year-old ‘coffee master’and request him to conjure the famed Ratna Cafe kaapi. RK Narayan, who proclaimed himself to be the “globe’s best coffee taster” and deemed the origin of Indian coffee “saintly”, once remarked that “brown ought to be the colour of honest coffee”. What Prabhu deftly whips up for me is the perfect brown coffee — the colour being born as a result of the hankering of the milk to become one with the opulent ‘Bayer’s coffee’ decoction that percolated through a stainless steel filter. Amidst peeled and plastered walls, I sit down with my tumbler and davarah and allow the first cup of coffee to arouse my senses. I mentally raise a toast, with the slightly bitter coffee bearing a dash of frothy milk, to Baba Budan, the saint who brought coffee to India, and to RK Narayan, as well.
From Triplicane, I head to Mylai Karpagambal mess, the well known eatery situated near Kapaleeshwar kovil. I sit down to have an inspiring chat with Prabhu Das, who believes that gulping about 25-30 cups of Kumbakonam degree kaapi everyday aids him in efficiently running the mess. “My thatha was the first person to bring Kumbakonam degree kaapi to Chennai in 1960. There was a lot of demand for it,” he beams with pride.
As I begin questioning Prabhu, I notice the milkman arrive. “He is the man who supplies 10-15 litres of freshly drawn milk to us, once every hour. We use the milk within 30 minutes of milking the cow. We purchase the coffee beans, roast and finely grind them and prepare decoction out of the powder,” says Prabhu. I am engrossed in listening to him talk about his love for coffee, when he suddenly states, “Please drink your coffee ma’am. One of the worst things to do is to drink coffee, once it becomes cold. My father used to say that coffee, devoid of the heat, is plainly poison.” As I sip the homely coffee, I wallow in the delicate taste of the karandha paal (freshly drawn milk) and let the seraphic concoction flow down my throat.
My third stop of the evening is Indian Coffee House, situated in one of the corners of the chaotic junction, near the T-Nagar bus depot. Indian filter coffee was majorly popularised by the Indian coffee houses spread across the country. This joint was started about 55 years ago and since then, the method of preparation of its ‘pure blend’ coffee has been the same. Suresh Babu, its coffee master makes more than 600 cups of coffee every day.”We mix Peaberry, Robusta and Plantation A seeds and do not add chicory to our coffee. This makes our coffee unalloyed and tastier,” he says. I joyously sip the coffee from my porcelain saucer and think about the coffee shops that I am yet to visit and the “sinful” coffees that I am yet to subject my taste buds to.