I knew it at the first brush of the lips.
The sky erupted in thunder, the airport air smelled oddly of sandalwood, and the tears I had so expertly pushed down threatened to rupture the lump in my throat like a monsoon river against a dam. A strange instinct, however, made me focus on the taste of chicory in my mouth. Only moments before, I was dabbing at my face with a wet tissue, trying to make sense of the fact that I was in college a month back and was now expected to start a job in a new city. But then came the very welcome distraction of fingertips on fire, of the forbidden touch of the earthen cup.
The filter coffee had, from the very beginning, made it easier.
It held my hand as the cab emerged from Kempegowda Airport and I saw the water colour blur of Hebbal Bridge for the first time, a view I would soon get used to, at least once a month. I nervously stroked the body that carried my liquid lover, my forefinger and thumb locked in an anonymous mudra – the beginning of a long and passionate relationship. I was glad that this magical concoction only came into my life once I moved to Bangalore. There was no lack of filter coffee in the various joints, both historic and hip, around my hometown. My love story, fortunately, began at a closer proximity to its birthplace. Legend talks of Sufi saint Baba Budan, who, on his sixteenth century pilgrimage to Al-Makha in Yemen, discovered the wonders of these magical beans. He smuggled the coffee beans to Karnataka and planted them along Chandragiri Hills, in what is now a favourite destination of any coffee-lover – much like myself – Chikmagalur.
Being new to the filter coffee culture, I was hesitant at first to order my choices at the Udupi breakfast houses. I saw everyone else at tables around me lift the metal tumblers from their dabarahs, a mound of delicious golden-brown froth brimming over the liquid. I couldn’t have the traditional composition, lactose intolerant as I am. The orchestral practice of servers raising their hands over their heads to pour the steaming milk, like a tall mountainous waterfall, into the tumbler would not be a symphony performed for me. So the first time I ate out at a tiffin house – Sri Udupi Park in Indiranagar – I was timid in placing my coffee order. I leaned at the counter so as to whisper, almost apologetically –
Filter coffee… black?
There was music. The conductor’s hand rose above his head, just like it did for everyone else. For me, they poured steaming hot water into the brew. And like Mozart’s movement into the allegretto, there it was before me – my metal tumbler embraced by its protective dabarah. My cup of black filter coffee. People in Bangalore didn’t mind you colouring outside the lines. They didn’t have a status quo. Here, women walked into pubs in kanjeevaram sarees and jasmines in their hair.
It was my sweet refrain. I was just another coffee lover from Kolkata, a girl in love with the city. I was at once an individual and the vox populi.
*****
Eventually, I began to make it my duty to take my friends out to try filter coffee in all my favourite places around the city. Most of them had come from different parts of India, like myself. There would always be two varieties of the drink on our table – theirs, the one with milk and froth, and mine, a dark, minimalist tapestry with bubbles in the fabric. It was a pattern I loved. As I am yet to find my black coffee twin, I have so far maintained a sense of monogamy in this romance of the dark roast.
I tried to replicate the procedure in my kitchen. I still remember the song I played on loop, almost like a superstition. Every time Neil Diamond utters “They’re coming to America”, the bubbles simmer. Like a phased exhale. Meditation through mocha.
Unfortunately, it came out tasting too tart. Fortunately, it was August in Bangalore, and rain was in the air. I stepped out with my kettle of sub-par brew and settled on the roof with my knees crossed. I raised a toast to this, to imperfection, to a first time.
Of course, I was up all night, because, romantic or not, coffee after 10 PM is still coffee after 10 PM.
But Neil Diamond sang again, and this time, I was a little more mature – at work, and while working the dark roast beans. It came out tasting just like the coffee our landlady had offered us when we were moving in. Then again, hers had milk in it, and I was yet to perfect my equation with the raw nakedness of the brew. Yet, as an approximation, ‘somewhat like the landlady’s coffee’ was an achievement for me.
For the most part though, I stuck to my romantic dates with the brew at Mavalli Tiffin Rooms and Madurai Idly Shops.
I would walk out of the house, catch a falling petunia from the sky, cross my arms and wait for the traffic to make way at the four-way crossing on 100 Ft Road. I would look at my slippers and the t-shirt I slept in, wonder what it was about a city that made me feel not only confident but beautiful in my everyday being, and then, fly past 12th Main. I became more and more active, driving myself to sneak in long walks before work, or going for a run to clear my head in between intense work sessions. Because something beckoned at me.
It may have been the coffee specifically, or maybe a divine intervention had come into my life – in a cup – only to structure my days and make them more vibrant. More immersive.
But yes, the black filter coffee?
It paired perfectly with my dosa and coconut chutney. It kept me company if my plate of idlis took too long to arrive. It was an artist’s compass, the corner from which the portrait of an early Bangalore morning would start. It sat on the edge of windows, its fumes stroking the feet of blue skies in a city I was beginning to fall for. It courted the heaving trees which poked their stubborn heads into the chaos of the South Indian tiffin houses during breakfast hour. And on particularly gloomy Mondays, it remained a silent companion next to my office laptop, refilling itself past client meetings and code bugs.
In more ways than one, it became my saving grace at the office.
We had a Hatti Kaapi on our ground floor, where I would escape to at least twice a day. Sometimes, I would have a colleague with me. Other times, it would be just my filter coffee and I, alongside fickle companions like corn samosas and aloo tikkis.
This was where my father came to rest, after I proudly showed him around my office. It was months after he had dropped me there as a ‘fresher’, at the time of which I had wiped secret tears in the elevator ride upstairs. But this time, I was confident and thoroughly enjoying my work. Carrying two cups of filter coffee from the counter, I excitedly told him about my colleagues, the new friends I had, the trendy places I was discovering every day, the writing I had done and the poetry groups who had welcomed me in the new city. I realized the stories coffee cups can tell, if they carried a history of hand motions. As a nervous girl moving out of home for the first time, I was undoubtedly running my fingers around the rim, grinding my fingernails into its metal body – all of which were anxious ticks I still had, but were transferred on to different topics. Guy problems or client escalations. I probably hadn’t finished my coffee when my parents said goodbye to me in that ancient monsoon afternoon. But now, I had cup after cup, waving and slapping the table lightly with each Shabash! – as my father and I spoke endlessly about life, about my new life.
Later on that year, my parents came down to Bangalore to travel. I was to meet them at the airport, and then go onwards to Bandipur and Mudumalai. I counted the seconds until their flight landed. My plan was time-sensitive. If anything went wrong, there could be serious dermatological injuries. Burnt fingers, or likewise. I stood by the counter, waiting for my phone to chime. My father had promised to text once they had retrieved their luggage. That was to be T-5 minutes. He didn’t text, but he called. With my head pressed against my shoulder, I talked into the speaker as I raised two fingers at the Hatti Kaapi server. They were almost out of the arrival gates. My palms curved around the earthen cups, careful to touch only the thick tissue papers. And when I saw them, rolling their suitcases out, I raised both palms – both hands holding a cup of filter coffee each – and called ‘Nimage suswagata!’
It was a cup of filter coffee that had welcomed me into this city, and were I to do the same to others, I could only do it with my midnight friend, my other half, a ‘drink’ that made days feel incomplete without it.
*****
Even as I work from home now, visiting the Calcutta South India Club with friends on weekends, I end up telling stories of Bangalore if anyone orders a filter coffee.
On our first Diwali there, my flatmates and I underestimated the distance to a market. Before we knew it, we were breezing through the city in an auto at 11 AM, with pyjamas and slippers on. Soon, the mileposts started telling the distance to Hyderabad. We managed to tie up our errands, merge the cash in our purses, then make a long road trip back to our home base in Indiranagar by late afternoon. We hadn’t eaten the whole day, and didn’t have the energy to cook anything either. We slipped into the nearest Udupi Park and ordered some food. It was teeming with people, so we had to stand in wait around a table. When my coffee arrived in those familiar steel cups, I began to feel safe for the first time in what seemed like a long and adventurous day.
It is a city within a cup. Memories, both old and upcoming, floating like tree-shapes in reflection within the dark liquid.
Because of the pandemic, the last two years were planted with a few temporary “trips” to and from Bangalore. I felt my separation, every time I ordered my coffee – the ‘signature filter coffee blend’ – online from independent roasters in Bangalore. Getting to drink it straight from the workshops of my regular annas – my neighbours on Indiranagar 12th Main, my friends – were few and far between.
Preparing for my journey back to Kolkata in January this year – what became my longest separation from my city-of-love so far – I leaned wistfully against the counter of Sendhoor Coffee. I asked for my black filter coffee to be poured into my flask. I stuffed it into my backpack as I loaded my bags into the airport cab. We crossed CMH Road, then fell into a knot in the Marathalli traffic (Bangalore’s way of telling its departing lovers to stay, stay, stay). My earphones played Sufi.
May my ship never sink in the waves –
Oh, won’t You write this in my fate?
We started to move. Names like Hebbal, Yelahanka and Ramamoorthy Nagar loomed upon the signposts. Airport-adjacent places. I took my flask out and took a sip. There were no patterns of earthen wheels beneath my fingers, no steel rim touching my lips. It was getting lukewarm too. But it tasted like Indiranagar evenings, tangy, with hints of chicory. It smelled warm and loving. We were stuck in traffic again. Time had stopped.
Illustration : Pinterest