JOIN USSooner or later, the task of preparing the decoction for the morning filter coffee gets passed on to the lord and master of the household who hates waiting patiently for his wife to get up and do the honours. Simple it may seem, but this task would call for an expertise in no way inferior to concocting the explosive Molotov cocktail. Location of the two chambers of the coffee filter in the kitchen would be the first hurdle. If lucky, the bleary-eyed lord and master would find them together in close proximity. The hunt for the coffee powder receptacle would begin next as kitchen codes rule disorder to be in order.
Filling the upper chamber of the filter having a perforated bottom with coffee powder is the next difficult step. The quantum to be spooned in depends on a difficult mental calculation of the number of cups to be made available from the first star decoction and the subsequent muddy withdrawal to be used as a deterrent for the gate-crashing guests.
The powder would be consolidated next like loose soil in project sites. How much and how long to press cannot be taught from the pages of a coffee making for dummies. In the meantime, with his shrewd skill at time management the lord and master would have set up a kettle. This would by now will be throwing whiffs of steam or blobs of boiling water through its swan like spout.
Boiling water has to be poured into the filter with a circular clock wise motion, the quantum being proportional to the spoons of powder fed therein. The search for the lid will be on now which will be right under the nose but not visible to the cataract veiled eyes of the coffee seeker.
Having completed the procedure, there will be time to scan the newspaper at the kitchen table to know which one of our political big weights is in jail or on bail. The required milk made ready next, he would rub his hands in glee to brew the first coffee of the day according to his finicky taste.
Dramatic entry into the kitchen will be made by the lady of the house at this very moment. “M’mmm! Smells good. Why didn’t you wake me up?” she would mumble without changing a word from her stock entry line. “Move over. Let me make your coffee.”