All I need is Coffee

In the near future, if you read or hear the news about the sudden - and not sad - demise of  an unidentified person owing to excessive consumption of (free) hot chocolate, waste no time in trying to identify the person. That will be me. I have been drinking hot chocolate by the litre everyday that I am surprised I haven't dropped dead yet. That can partly be put down to the fact that I can help myself to an endless supply of hot chocolate at office, and partly because Coffee - without which I thought I couldn't live three months ago -  in this part of the world tastes much worse than my Pepper Rasam. Some like it bitter. A little bit of bitterness adds taste to coffee but not so bitter that it puts 'Kasayam' to shame. No, thank you. I am not a tea person but I'm sure that doesn't taste any better, either.

It beats me why any man in his right mind would want to drink coffee without milk and sugar. That's like making Sambhar without tamarind and onions. Takes the essence out of it. Not that milk and sugar are not available. You can go on adding milk from dawn till dusk but at the end of it your coffee will still taste bitter. It's an acquired taste said a friend of mine who's from Chennai too but after three months all I have acquired is an acute distaste for coffee.

Toronto teems with Indian restaurants that it's impossible to turn around a bend and not come upon an Indian restaurant. However, there are a handful of restaurants that makes me think I am in India, while the rest makes me wish I were. Not a single place that serves coffee that tastes the way it's supposed to taste. I have almost forgotten the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. I wish I could get them all a copy of R.K.Narayan's My Dateless Diary in which he describes to a nicety how Filter Kappi is prepared in South India. 

Three months ago if anyone had advised me so much as to cut down on coffee, I'd have tied a brick to his neck and pushed him off into a lake. I can't believe myself that I have survived for three months without coffee. I tried out instant Bru coffee from an Indian shop and it was a big let down. When it comes to coffee, I don't settle for anything less than the best. Looks like it's going to be so long before I get to taste good coffee again.






Comments

Popular Posts