Varun Nair’s Personal Blog

Coffee heaven

Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy. [Coffee] is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so. From roadside mugs to the classic demi-tasse, it is the perfect democrat. ~ Author Unknown

Coffee… aah… You have got me daydreaming already. Good coffee, good conversation and light music is one of my heavens. Give me a coffee anytime, morning, afternoon, evening, night and I will be happy.

My penchant for coffee is at least partially due to my genes. Otherwise how would a Malayalee born and brought up in Gujjuland still prefer coffee over tea? Of course my dear Dad, a hardcore coffee drinker, is also responsible. When at home, my Mom and brother are predominantly tea drinkers, my Dad and I belong to the coffee camp (See clarification below ). In Mallu breakfast and afternoon snacks are both referred to as having “Kaapi” - i.e. having “coffee”.

Coffee is for bonding. My Dad is an expert coffee maker and can make the famous 1-meter south-Indian coffee. This is when you make coffee normally but work it into a nice solid frothy drink by repeatedly pouring it into one glass from another from a height of approximately 1 meter in a smooth swinging motion. And even today when Dad and I are up late watching some movie we suddenly look at each other and I see the glint in his eyes… he is asking do you want some black coffee? And of course I say yes. And in 5 mins both of us are sipping some nice black coffee.

Most of my friends are coffee lovers. Some of were coffee lovers, some of them drink coffee just to give me company and some became coffee lovers on my insistence. Some of the best memories and conversations have been had over steaming cups of coffee. I have bonded with best friends over coffee and felt comfortable with total strangers over a coffee table. Exam times were an excuse for having endless cups of coffee and not for studying. My board exam marks are more than ample proof of that. Even today at work hot coffees and cold coffees are my constant companions.

I am not a connoisseur, I don’t like exotic coffees. I like my coffee hot, simple, reasonably bitter and in large quantities. My favourites are espressos and cafe latte. Earlier I used to like strong bitter coffees. Lately I have been liking mild milky coffees more. I guess that is something to do about how I changed over the years or something like that. Has some research scholar out there done any research on the correlation between coffee types and people behaviours?… I am sure there should be something like that out there. One of the things on my wishlist is a nice coffee maker. One that takes in coffee beans, grinds it and brews it fresh. Should be another experience altogether.

Going to the CCD near our house is a weekend must-do for my gang here. Actually for me… I force them to come along. We went there last week and had tons of fun singing old songs and bugging the people around us in general. I went to that CCD yesterday again to meet an old schoolfriend of mine, Krishna after 10 longs years. Went to CCD again yesterday with a friend of mine and had a long, nice and interesting conversation over cafe latte. And today Aishwar, again a classmate of mine from school days is in town so Krishna, Aishwar and I will be meeting up in the evening somewhere in Bandra over a cup of, yes you guessed it right, coffee.

All this thinking about coffee has made me yearn for some right now. Anybody coming for a cup of coffee?

Clarification: Vineet clarifies that he is also a soldier from the coffee camp but defects to the tea camp when at home because Mom makes very good tea. Come to think of it… when at home I too have lots of tea.

Here are a few more interesting quotes about coffee all filched from Quote Garden.

Coffee, the finest organic suspension ever devised. ~ Star Trek: Voyager

Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven. ~ Jessi Lane Adams

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdos

Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 5:36 am and is filed under friends, thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.