Need to figure out what to change up next…

Made two big changes… got myself a vessel to heat up the milk in the oven. And thanks to a tip from Lakshmi, changed the decoction-to-milk ratio. For the first time, my memory cells from Taramani days were awakened!!

In a side story, our CHRO, Nicole, was in South India this week for work. This was her first trip to India. I had asked her to try “Filter Kaapi”. Apparently, after a fair bit of hesitation, she tried it.

And now we have “Plus One” for people who love South Indian “Filter Kaapi” !!!

Got myself a bag of South Indian coffee powder from Hyderabad. The result was remarkably close to what I remember of the Taramani coffee we used to drink while at IIT Chennai. I am still not forgiving my South Indian friends for feeding me coffee that had 20% chicory in it, though 🙂

My next frontier to solve is the temperature. I used the thermometer today to monitor it. The milk itself is at 170 deg F. But once I do a few pours from the dabara to the tumbler to get the froth, the temperature drops to 140 deg F. The stainless steel vessels lose heat very quickly.

I want steaming hot coffee like my South Indian friends give me.

Microwaving does not feel authentic. None of those Taramani tea stalls had microwaves. So, I have a mental barrier. Plus, I am not putting any stainless steel vessels in the microwave. Resorting to ceramic feels like giving up on the art of South Indian Filter Kaapi.

I welcome your ideas!

… I am convinced, is to give you time to clean up all the stainless steel utensils required, in the meantime. Making a cappuccino in the machine didn’t require this many utensils.

In the meantime, I need the following to keep testing and tasting.

1. Dark roast coffee beans mixed with chicory. I have to admit that when I found out that South Indian coffee uses chicory, I was a bit deflated. Historically, chicory was added to coffee to cheat customers when coffee beans were in short supply. But apparently, I need that to get the authentic South Indian coffee smell and taste. Haver ordered on Amazon now.

2. Use full-fat milk. I am balking at this one. Being a bit afraid of lipids (and with my LDL levels high), I have trained my palate to enjoy coffee with skimmed milk. Maybe I will settle for 2% for a while.

3. The third one, I need help from experts. I cannot get my coffee to be steaming hot. Do you folks boil the milk? What do you do when you need it only for one person? That is 8-10 ounces of milk at most.

Thanks to a call last night with Lakshmi (Vidya), I changed up a few things, and the results are improving. The big difference was the grain size. Instead of using some packaged grind, I used the Breville to grind the coffee beans with a “3” setting – that is Turkish Grind level. That made a huge difference to the dripping speed. In fact, there was no dripping during the blooming period.

Ten minutes later, while meditating, I could hear the sound of water dripping in an otherwise quiet room. Caught between the prospect of a bathroom faucet leaking and my coffee-dripping reaching a modicum of success, I rushed to the coffee counter and was delighted to find no bathroom leaks!!

I still have a long way to go. While the decoction was strong, the coffee (with milk) did not hit the richness of what I have tasted in my South Indian friends’ houses. I wonder whether using skimmed milk is part of my problem.

Also, I can’t get the end result to be piping hot. Do not get me wrong — it is coming out hot — around 160 deg F. But, in my friends’ houses, I can barely hold the tumblr!

The experimentation shall continue…

Fixed the volume problem. But something is amiss. The water is percolating immediately. It is not supposed to.