Episode 86 : Caffeine

If you wanna hang out, you've got to take her out; caffeine
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; caffeine
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; caffeine
When your day is done and you wanna run; caffeine
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; caffeine
Dont forget this fact, you cant get it back; caffeine
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; caffeine

I don't like to drink coffee made by a vending machine; the output is always a brown liquid that tastes anything but coffee.

Mama Hyde's coffee used to be the kind I always liked. Then something went wrong somewhere and soon I began to crave for that long-lost taste of coffee.

Coffees given at workplaces were always awful. So I switched to tea. And savour what I got at weekends- at home, at Barista/Cafe Coffee Day, or if I am lucky enough, the traditional filter coffee at one of the many small restaurants in Madras.

Someone suggested that Barista has a Filter Coffee option at their outlets. I did not find it in Madras. I did not find it in Bangalore. Not in Barista, not in Cafe Coffee Day. But, I discovered Java City has filter coffee. Life is slowly beginning to look optimistic…

Specific Gravity provided a welcome break. Instead of a vending machine, or a person supplying coffee, they provide a pantry where you can make badam milk, chocolate drink, tea or coffee.

Now coffee could be made using the decoction that was always available. Or using the coffee stored in a small container. I started with the decoction and stuck to it for a few days.

A few days later, 'Hmm... could get stronger'.

I used the coffee in the container and stuck to it for a few days. And then, 'Oh! Why am I adding hot water to it? I can use the warm decoction instead!’

And then one day, in the Pantry of Specific Gravity's R&D labs, my R&D on coffee had a breakthrough.

The perfect coffee.

But... but... I did not note the exact proportions of coffee powder, decoction, milk and sugar.

Ala Dr. Jekyll, I repeated all my experiments, but I never came close to achieving what I did so successfully before. I concluded there must have been some impurity in the decoction that allowed the success.

I haven't given up hope, though.