I’ve been asked, many a time, “You don’t drink tea, you don’t eat fish…what kind of a Malayalee are you?!? ” Well, I am the kind of Malayalee that enjoys a good cup of coffee, any time of the day and can’t stand the smell of fish.
I have nothing against tea, tea drinkers and fish lovers; its just a matter of personal preference. I don’t remember when I got hooked onto coffee, but what started as an occasional cup of coffee, reached a peak during my college days when a day wouldn’t go by without 4-5 cups of this freshly brewed concoction. Maybe I was also spoiled a little (read as a lot), with the high quality filter coffee that was always available at home.
My husband comes from a predominantly tea drinking, what most people may call a typical Malayalee, family. In the early days of our marriage, I would diligently make a cup of tea and coffee each, every day. But as time passed, he sweetly switched over to coffee because he didn’t want me slogging over two types of beverages. Or was it because he had not had such darn good coffee before? Anyway, now I can’t get him off coffee!
During our initial years in the U.S., I realized that coffee here is way different from what I was used to back home. While we poured the coffee decoction or added instant coffee to a lavish amount of steaming milk, I was shocked to see the amount of milk or creamer that went into a gigantic cup of black coffee here: it was so negligible that it barely changed the color of the coffee. Because of this, I used to be apprehensive to even order coffee at Starbucks. But now, equipped with more knowledge and experience, I can boldly walk into a cafe and order the right type of drink.
Talking about the right type of drink, do you have a favorite type of coffee? My all time favorite is the traditional, South Indian filter coffee. Nothing can beat the aroma of freshly brewed filter coffee, especially in the morning. But these days I make do with either Indian or American instant coffees. This is mainly attributed to laziness and partly because I still am not not sure of what type of coffee bean/powder to buy :-).
But regardless of whether I drink filter coffee or instant, tell me this: Does not drinking tea make me any less of a Malayalee?
Ramblings! 
Very tempting write-up
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Thank you 🙂
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I enjoy both good Indian black tea (with milk of course)and South Indian Filter coffee. When I was about 10 year old, there used to be strict rationing of food staples. Our ration card used to be eligible for just 600 grams of PDS (Public Distribution System) sugar per head for adults and half of that for children. So invariably a lot of jaggery was used. Since tea tastes terrible with jaggery, most of the people used to drink coffee sweetened with jaggery. I n my ancestral home at Kottakka, there were many mouths to feed, hence the bulk preparation of coffee was the only way to go. Filter coffee was not in vogue at that time, there. “Podi kaappi”, that is coffee powder dunked into boiled water, let to brew for some time and decanted into warm milk added with good measure of jaggery used to be kept in a big container for every one to share from. The mixture used to be lukewarm, dark and highly viscous. To avoid drinking that concoction, I used to say that coffee does not suit my constitution, hence tea with sugar was the alternative.
I also love my coffee and do experiment with different types and source. To me, the South Indian filter coffee is the most value for money. I avoid instant coffee as far as possible. Recently I tried a Colombian Medium dark roast coarse ground coffee and found it to be excellent, but it costs almost 4 times that of our desi coffee.
Thanks for the blog on coffee.
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