जीभ जलाने वाली Coffee

An Indian wedding is an eclectic mix of bright colours, fading traditions, emerging stupidities, and extreme pandemonium. It is difficult to single out the reason for this state of disorder in any wedding. It can come from the Old-Brigade perched closely as if it was another day in the neighborhood park; or from Red-Sari wearing, slightly bottom-heavy aunties, lost in conversations and wiping out plates of Paneer Tikka; or from Whisky-sipping Uncles who pat your back on every instance and always make you feel old by saying, “We saw you when you were this small”; or from youngsters lost between Jooti-Wars and undertaking every step possible to attract the opposite sex; or from those kids aimlessly running across the wedding venue, a third of whom are doomed to fall and cry, and the rest spend their evening fulfilling culinary requests from Old-Brigade, “Beta, you are SharmaJi’s son na. Can you get us a couple of Rotis, please?”.

Amidst the clutter, one tends to seek temporary relief in food. But the sheer magnitude of culinary offerings, which transforms Wedding Buffet into a Pragati Maidan-like Industrial Expo is more nauseating than it is alleviating.

One thing which often helps is a Coffee Break. And nothing can be better than the Jug-वाली coffee, popularly known as Expresso Coffee.

And it isn’t that difficult to make. An intricate system of pipelines run through a kitschy kaleidoscope-like  colored metal box which works non-stop to push steam out. The steam is passed into a Jug full of milk, coffee powder, and sugar. It is served usually in paper/thermocol cups, with a sprinkling of drinking chocolate power on top. The end result is screeching-hot.

Someone lifting the coffee usually first cups their hands around to feel the warmth, especially during winters. More often than not, the coffee-drinker then tends to dip their tongue in coffee, and almost all the times it stings the tongue with a sharp burning sensation. The coffee drinking experience is mostly characterized through an alternate usage of cold-blows and tongue-dips, taking the coffee-drinker through a unique journey from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Arctic, within a small yet highly-sensitive region of the tongue.

One can never make out the actual flavors of this coffee, as we can never feel any. The heat ensures that the tongue goes into partial paralysis, and what we remember is just the warmth, and the normalcy it brings to the proceedings around us.

But like all good things, even the Expresso Machine is disappearing from Indian weddings. Now one can see popular coffee retail chains getting into serving coffee at weddings. I still recall walking into a café few years back (Café Coffee Day I vaguely remember) and asking for an Expresso, getting a shot of black coffee in return (And then I realized that it had always been Espresso, and not Expresso as I called it, and this category is popularly known as Indian Espresso).

There are coffee shops everywhere, premium brands available at retail outlets, I have  a filter at home to brew filter coffee, I also make my फेटी (whipped) coffee, a couple of Starbucks have just opened up in Mumbai, there are coffee workshops happening all over.

But where is my जीभ जलाने वाली Coffee?