South Indian Ritual · Decoction Coffee
Madras Filter Coffee
Photo: AmanAgrahari01 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Many filter-coffee blends mix in chicory, which, just as in New Orleans coffee, adds bitterness and body to the brew.
Coffee decoction, brewed slowly through a two-chamber steel filter, is mixed with hot milk and sugar, then poured back and forth between a steel tumbler and its wide dabarah cup to cool it and build a foamy head. Roadside coffee stalls and tiffin shops across Tamil Nadu serve it this way every morning.
Why it's made this way: Kaapi brewed this way is such an ingrained part of daily life in Tamil Nadu that most homes and shops keep their own steel filter on hand, and the tumbler-and-dabarah pour remains the one detail that marks it as distinctly South Indian.
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