Many say coffee is a South Indian addiction. For evidence, you need not look anywhere beyond a Brahmin household. Our grandmother, who used to observe fasting on virtually half of the month, always had her excuse to have her quota of two coffees in the morning.

Grandma, like many women of her generation, followed a very strict ritual for coffee preparation each morning. The upper vessel of the filter would be first warmed over the fire, allowing the holes to expand. Grandma would then strew tiny sugar crystals before filling it with a few careful spoons of coffee powder and pour hot water over it.

Once done, the same coffee powder would be used to brew decoctions for two or three times depending on the demand. An old story that still does its rounds among our family members better illustrates the addiction for strong coffee. One of our distant relatives, Ambi Mama, worked as a cook in a landlord’s house. Though he was given all the facilities, he had one problem: he could never savour  strong coffee in the morning.

What hurt Ambi Mama the most was the fact that he could have coffee only with the decoction as thin as hot water, as the decoction brewed first and second time was used to make coffee for the landlord and his family.

Starved of the magic drink, the cook devised a trick to let the landlord understand what he was going through.
One morning, as Ambi Mama prepared coffee for the landlord with the freshly brewed decoction, he silently swapped the strong coffee glass with the uninspiring, dull solution he drank daily before the lady of the house could notice, and brought it to the landlord. As he was attending to an important work, the landlord asked Ambi Mama to keep the coffee glass on the table.

When he sipped the drink a few minutes later, the landlord became furious. He called Ambi Mama and asked him: "Which donkey do you think will drink this dirty stuff?” Ambi Mama, without any hesitation, answered: “This donkey has been drinking this all these days!” He was not worried about losing his job, but was happy to realise that he was free to drink fresh coffee once again.