Zen & The Art of Coffee Making

I’m a true blue South Indian when it comes to starting my day with a strong filter coffee.  And I’ve experimented with many ways to discover the right taste that I really love when I make the coffee. But recently I discovered something that never struck me before about the perfect filter coffee!

I was at a friend’s home for a yoga therapy consultation and as we were speaking, I was offered a cup of coffee. I always loved the coffee at her place as it had a taste that was close what we used to make at home. As I was about to take the cup, she asked the cook to prepare it right and bring it back. I was surprised and wondered how she knew it wasn’t well prepared. She added saying there was no froth at top of the coffee. The froth!

Like the King Fu panda who discovered the secret ingredient of the noodle soup, I looked at the froth when the coffee cup returned. It’s actually nothing but it makes all the difference to the aesthetics and feel of that coffee! And then I remembered how my dad used to take the effort of creating the froth before serving the coffee when I woke up early morning to study. I never paid attention to it but it always had a different feel to it.

Maybe it’s the attention to the detail, being fully with something as routine as making your morning cup of coffee. I was in touch with a lot of ramyam (beauty) of how I can transform such a simple routine task into an act of grace and beauty. Zen & the Art of Coffee Making, if you may.