Me - A Coffee Ulysses!?

COFFEE!!! The very word energizes me. Am sure there's nothing to beat a steaming hot cup of coffee, even right in the middle of a hot summer day. However, in Bombay, it's quite a task to find the best coffee in town. Coz, not surprisingly, there aren't many ;(

Let me confess that I've never been an ardent coffee fan all my life. Till the time I reached Class VI/VII, I used to dread coffee, seriously, you see! I was very fond of Nutramul and Bournvita and used to think that I would never switch to coffee anyday. I still remember the day when I was forcefully served coffee at a wedding and I had to vomit it out very soon, thanks to my anti-coffee instincts back in 1993. And from there, here I am pining for the good old filter kapi today!

On the contrary, I do not recall when I started liking coffee. Most Tamil households start their day with the quintessential coffee and The Hindu. Tea is often considered a luxury and a north-y drink! As a matter of fact, when I hear my South-y friends and cousins remark that they drink tea to stay awake late to prepare for an exam, I'm quite surprised. It's always been coffeee for
me, right from Class X.

However, my job at Adobe, Bangalore spoilt my taste for coffee with the cafetaria boasting of an overwhelming range of tea flavours including masala, ginger, ordinary, green and Darjeeling tea - quite an assortment. I started enjoying tea as well. Perhaps it was the result of the lack of good coffee around. Still, whenever we went out on weekends to Krishna Cafe/Adyar Ananda Bhavan/even Adigas next door, a final coffee after the meal was the norm. Even a movie at PVR would be incomplete without that Rs. 45 da cold coffee at the interval.

Unfortunately, the coffee at IIM-B sucks big time! It's nothing more than a super-saturated sugar solution of Bru and hot water. How disappointed was I! It takes a huge effort to go out of campus on the look out for my kapi. And now, here I am at Bombay. I know that an authentic filter coffee is too much to ask for, in a place like Bombay when chai rules. However, restaurants should have the courtesy to say that they don't serve filter coffee when I ask them if they do. In their being hyper-officious, I end up disgruntled when I realize that it's not filter kapi after all. However, I've discovered Matunga's humble restaurant Mani's serves home-made sooper filter kapi with that extra dash of sugar, just as I like it!

People like their coffee their own way. For instance, there's this cousin who wants to his coffee to be just hot, you know, just hot, not more, not less. His mom has mastered this art of makin 'just hot' coffee but most others have failed till date. An uncle of mine wants his coffee served in the davaraa only! I, for one, like my coffee, hot or cold, but surely thick and in a big ever-silver tumbler.. :D

The thought of returning to IIM B for my second year, after this internship here, is not that inviting, given that we would be compelled to hit our books and cases after a gap. However, Lo and Behold!!! There's this newly opened MTR joint in the campus and MTR serves the best filter coffee in Bangalore. So here I am, waiting to board the Bangalore Mail early June!