South Indian Filter Coffee: How It Is Made and How to Drink It
•3 min read
A South Indian meal does not really end until the coffee arrives. Filter coffee, or kaapi, is strong, milky, a little sweet and served very hot in a steel tumbler. It is made nothing like an espresso or a French press, and that is why it tastes different.
The filter
The pot is two steel cups stacked on top of each other. The top one has tiny holes in its base. Ground coffee goes in, a perforated disc presses it down, and hot water is poured over. Then you wait. The coffee drips through slowly, drop by drop, and collects in the lower cup.
The decoction
What collects below is called the decoction: a thick, dark, concentrated coffee. It is much stronger than anything you would drink on its own. A small amount is poured into the tumbler and topped up with hot, freshly boiled milk and sugar.
Why chicory
Most South Indian blends mix coffee with a little roasted chicory root. Chicory adds body and a slightly woody, caramel note, and it helps the decoction stand up to all that milk. We brew ours in the traditional “degree coffee” style, with a blend of coffee and chicory.
The tumbler and dabara
Filter coffee comes in a steel tumbler sitting inside a small steel bowl called a dabara. You pour the coffee back and forth between the two from a height. This cools it to a drinkable temperature, mixes in the sugar and raises a layer of froth on top.
What to have with it
- Medu Vada: crisp and savoury against the sweet coffee.
- Mysore Pak: rich gram-flour sweet; a small piece is enough.
- Kesari Bath: warm semolina pudding, if you want to finish with dessert.
Filter Coffee is on our beverages menu at all our Gurgaon outlets: Sector 74, Sector 30 and DLF Phase 3.
Come and try it
Soody's Being South Indian is open daily in Gurgaon.
