That First Cup…

Place: Home

Coffee: Starbucks Pike Place Roast (Home Brewed French Press)

I often go to coffee shops alone.

Not that I don’t like going there alone, but it is mostly because none of my friends are big fans of the drink. It’s common for us in India to not like coffee or to prefer Tea over Coffee, for the “Rich” colonial heritage we have had. So the option of catching up with friends for coffee never really worked for me.

Another reason I often visit coffee shops alone is the solace they offer to us introverts without passing any judgement in an otherwise extrovert friendly outside world. Mind you, there are very few places designed out there for people like us which allows us to be comfortable in our skin while also being out of our homes. So a trip to coffee shop is often on my agenda whenever I have to leave the comfort of my house, be it for work, shopping or to meet my someone. I ensure to treat myself with a Cuppa for the sheer effort of getting out of my comfort zone. And trust me visiting a right coffee shop is such an uplifting act that it really makes it all worth it. The warm interiors, wafting aroma of coffee in air, small but cozy tables and food just right for that occasional nibbling. All you need to do is grab a corner with your cup and let loose all your thoughts. Perhaps this whole experience is one of the reasons I have been having a scandalous affair with this world famous drink for quite some time now.

As this is my first post, let me take some liberty to explain the purpose of text in the sub header. This should tell the reader about place and cup that induced the idea/story of the write up that follows it. The idea is simple. Capture the train of thoughts a cup of coffee induces while enjoyed in serenity and put it to words. Even the idea to start this blog came to me during one of those visits to coffee shops I mentioned earlier. I admit it has took me ages to start with it. The time has changed. Blogging is no more synonymous to writing but making informative videos, nowadays. But still, here we are, trying to keep some old customs alive and trying to make a start for my first post, while having a lazy weekend morning cup. And then suddenly it occurred to me that it only make sense to contemplate about where my affair with this delicious beverage actually started. Well, to be honest it was nothing fancy but this is how the story goes.

I must be 8 or 9 years old when I first wrote down ‘Coffee’ in our monthly grocery list. I think it was my mother who suggested it. Considering the cost, this was a Luxury item for our middle class house hold. But my mother argued it will be a good idea to keep it for those rare occasions if some special guests visit our place. You see, by that point of time, her say would matter or had started to matter in our household, due to her recent advancement to a new job. She had recently started working as a professor in a reputed college in town and was earning more than my father by then. For us this had started making a huge difference in our lifestyle. After a bit of discussion about quantity and brand between 2 of us (me & my mom as father was not fully convinced), I noted down a pouch of instant coffee in the list.

This was our monthly drill actually. It would usually occur in first week of every month, when we would scour through all the storage containers in our home to come up with a list of our monthly ration. The careful task, of assessing the quantity that is available at home and the quantity that will be needed in coming month, was up to my parents. I was assigned the task to run and fetch requested container and to make note of items prescribed by them. I didn’t realise it till a much later point in my life; but this little ritual actually taught me names of all the ingredients in our kitchen. This has to do with one of the classical tropes used in jokes cracked on Patriarchy in India about how Indian males find it difficult to separate certain kitchen items from one another. No wonder I always found them stupid until I realised how blessed I was. Anyway, back then, as an award for this whole exercise, I would get to write another luxury item at the end of that list, a ‘Dairy Milk’ bar. Back then it used to come in a standard 8 piece bar size, which would last us till next month. Me and my mom would treat ourselves with a piece every week and boy it used to taste so heavenly back then. In a longer, 5 week month, this would cause a weeklong drought when there was no chocolate for the additional week and I would eagerly wait for our monthly rationing ritual as that would be the day it used to be replenished.

But for that month, this new inclusion was what I felt most excited about. This was mostly due to those commercials which had started pouring into the television channels back then. We, having bought a new colour TV, had also recently subscribed to the local dish connection company. So I had not only upgraded to a remote operated colour TV from a manual knobbed B&W one; but also to some 12 odd TV channels from the meagre default national one. And the new content was a bit of cultural shock to me. The kind of programmes and commercials screened on these new channels were a world apart from what I was used to. It was there I first saw the coffee ads, in addition to few premium tea company ads, which were not a common site on the national tv channel. And the difference between branding and projection of a Tea ad and a Coffee ad is still evident in recent times. You can easily see how they pitch coffee as an elite drink. So you can imagine the kind of curiosity it would have aroused back then in my young & growing mind.

However, just by writing it down and even after bringing it home, the conclusion, or I would rather say initiation, of my coffee journey was not yet complete. The reason being this was to be saved to be served only for special guests, as I mentioned before and the onset for any such event wasn’t looking close; as I had already explored the possibility of the arrival people who might have been considered as special. It has thus dampened all the excitement I had felt on the day we bought it and it also evaporated from my mind after a few days. I made my peace with my weekly rationed piece of Cadbury bar and forgot all about it.

Apparently it finally happened on one fine day but not how the way it was intended. I am still not sure if it was my mom’s doing. The reason was simple, we had ran out of Tea. I was entitled to a cup of tea in evening after coming back from school. All of us would typically come home at almost same time, me and my father practically due to the reason that we would come back from same place. I was in same school where he used to teach. The evening tea thus was more of a catch up session for us. Some quality family time, which many of our generation now crave for.

So, on that fine day, my mom entered in kitchen for making the evening tea and called after my father declaring that we were running out of Tea powder. This was an unusual incident considering the careful planning my household had in place. My father, after a brief consideration, called after me and asked me to go and get it from nearby shop. I was engrossed in my usual evening cartoon show I used to catch up before it was time for my music class. So naturally I was not very keen on performing this task and mom kind of sensed it. She proposed to make coffee instead and to my surprise even father agreed quickly. I then realised maybe he was also curious about it. I later realised that it was probably first time everyone of us were going to taste the coffee.

Mom carefully read all the instructions from back of the pack and followed it with same precision as she would exhibit while teaching the chemical experiments in her college lab. After 10 minutes, I was holding my first cup of coffee with milk, brewed traditional Indian home style, with lot of excitement. First thing, that occurred to me, was that I will have to ditch the biscuits with this. You see, dipping biscuits is one of the best part of sipping traditional Indian Tea and somehow it wasn’t working that well with coffee. So it was a little disappointment for me. In addition, it tasted more milky than the Tea. But it was that aroma which kept me sipping it till the end. For me, it was a point of wonder for a very long time that how can a thing smell and taste so different.

I kept gazing at my parents through out the process, trying to asses their reaction. My father was first to declare his disappointment for the reservations he already had with the idea itself. It is however worth noting that he now starts his day with that same instant coffee. Mom’s reaction was too complex to interpret as usual. She never expresses her thoughts openly, be it in any matter, a habit I took from her.

Me ? I was happy to have finally experienced it and was already prepping my script for the boasting I was going to do in front of my school friends. As far as the question to switch to it as regular drink was concerned, it was still a luxury item for us back then, so it was out of question. But even in a hypothetic world, I was not ready to switch it with my usual cup of tea or malted milk. Simply because it was not how it was supposed to be. Also there was the question of time I had spent with the beverages in consideration. There came numerous events after that first occasion when I got chance to taste that instant coffee made with different proportions and methods but I could never come to terms with it. As they say true love never happens at first sight, so I waited. Waited until one fine day, it would come to reclaim me…