Indulge Chennai 19th anniversary edition special: A city brewing on filter coffee

As soon as Vimala Coffee Works came into view, we parked our bike with a sigh of relief. We had finally found the place. In the brief gap between taking the keys out of the ignition and stepping into the shop, a customer walked in, picked up his coffee powder and left almost as quickly as he had arrived. We were still making our way inside when it struck us how little time the transaction had taken.

At Vimala, which began in 1964, the staff know their regulars so well that they can have their orders ready with barely a word exchanged. Shiva, who works at the shop, says, “Ninety per cent of the people prefer medium roast and 10 per cent prefer dark roast.”

For many of us, the preference begins at home. In our case, it was our grandfather who made the first coffee of the day. No matter how late the previous night had stretched for the family, the smell of freshly brewed coffee would gently wake the household in the wee hours, more reliably than any alarm. God bless his insomniac soul, not a meeting was missed or a school bus caught too late on his watch.

The care and importance given to coffee has even found its way into our literature, too. In My Dateless Diary, R K Narayan writes about his coffee-loving mother, who carefully selected her beans, roasted them over a charcoal fire, and judged their readiness by the colour and fragrance of the smoke. As he puts it, “everything has to be right in this business”.

Chennai is no less devoted to its coffee than the households that raised us, no matter where we came from. Its ardent love for filter coffee actually made it easy for us to call this city our home. For almost everyone here, the first appointment of the day is with a coffee, and the loyalty here runs deep. When the Saravana Bhavan outlet on Radhakrishnan Salai shut down, regulars followed Ravi Master, who had made coffee there for years, to his new spot at First Cup at Maris on Cathedral Road.

Over the years, our coffee runs have offered glimpses of the conversations that reveal why filter coffee might be so closely tied to Chennai. This isn’t a laid-back city. There’s traffic to beat, meetings to get to, and deals to close. Between harrowing news headlines, the pressures of work ahead and personal anxieties, a cup of filter coffee offers a much-needed pause. At familiar stalls and neighbourhood counters, people catch up with friends and exchange opinions on politics, cinema, sport, and whatever else has been occupying the city. It’s a familiar and fiercely guarded taste, but also a ritual that gives the city’s hurried mornings a little room to breathe and collect its thoughts.

The right cup, the right way

And for a city that takes its coffee so seriously, how it’s brewed matters just as much as who makes it. Sidhant Nichani, coffee consultant and director of KWS Brew Works, believes the method is central to filter coffee’s identity. He describes South Indian filter coffee as a slow-drip extraction, cut with steaming hot milk and traditionally served in a tumbler-and-davara set. For him, the brewing method is central to its identity. “If the method of extraction is no longer a slow drip metal filter device, it stops being a South Indian filter kaapi,” he says.

For Sidhant, the filter is not simply a nostalgic prop. Its slow-drip method is what distinguishes South Indian filter coffee, even as the blends and ways of drinking it continue to change. He remembers introducing the brew during his professional coffee studies overseas and watching his classmates marvel at how easily it produced a cup that was both strong and flavourful.

He also questions the practice of extracting a second decoction from the same grounds to avoid wasting coffee. “The concept of a second decoction is an inherent waste as the only thing you're extracting then is brown water and foul flavour compounds in the name of making the most of the coffee,” he says.

That tension between inherited habits and changing ideas about quality is part of Chennai’s evolving coffee culture. Traditional filter coffee remains popular, while a growing number of enthusiasts are paying closer attention to flavour, extraction and the characteristics of individual beans. Sidhant believes the two approaches can coexist, even as the city develops a newer vocabulary around coffee.

For him, the future lies in recognising the brewing method as more than a familiar local custom. The tumbler and davara need not disappear for the city to experiment with its coffee, just as innovation need not mean abandoning the practices that made the brew distinctive in the first place.

That distinction matters to Alvin Chris Daniel, owner of Eventide Coffee, where speciality filter coffee is part of the café’s offering. A dark roast, Alvin argues, is not necessarily stronger: strength comes from concentration and extraction. Chicory can be part of the taste people grew up with, but it is not essential to a good cup. “For them, it tastes like home,” he says of its nostalgic pull. His ideal brew is rich and full-bodied, yet sweet, balanced and clean.

Alvin’s point is that a good cup begins well before the decoction reaches the tumbler. The choice of beans, how they are processed and how they are roasted all influence what eventually comes through in the cup. Natural-processed coffee, dried with the fruit still around the seed, can bring more sweetness and body, while washed coffee tends to produce a cleaner flavour. Robusta, meanwhile, adds intensity and helps the coffee hold its own against milk.

A blend can bring these qualities together without relying on an especially dark roast or chicory to create the impression of strength. “Every coffee brings something specific to the cup, and a good filter blend is really about building components on purpose,” he says.

Chicory has its own place in the story. The roasted root lends coffee a darker colour and woody bitterness, while slowing the drip and giving the decoction a more concentrated appearance. Its popularity is also tied to familiarity, Alvin points out. Historically used to stretch coffee when it was expensive, chicory became part of the flavour many people grew up drinking. But he believes it can also obscure the character of the beans.

He would rather see drinkers judge a cup by its balance than its darkness. “Heavy isn't the same as good,” he says. The aim, he explains, is a coffee that feels full-bodied without becoming muddy, with natural sweetness and a clean finish. Freshness matters, too. A decoction left sitting for hours can lose the qualities that make a carefully brewed cup worth drinking.

He wants the brew method taken more seriously by the speciality coffee world. “I don’t see filter coffee as the ‘traditional’ opposite of speciality. I see it as a brew method that hasn’t yet been given the same care and attention by many,” he says and points to people such as Viggnesh V of Yettu Craft Coffee, who recently served South Indian filter coffee in Japan, as well as Raghunath Rajaram of Aramse Coffee, who has developed a filter brewer to improve consistency. “The more we have people curious and open minded to try out a coffee this way, we will be able to take filter coffee to the global stage and make it a standard item in any menu in India or the world!” he says, passionately.

Out of the davara

For generations, filter coffee has largely stayed within the tumbler-and-davara set. Now, Chennai’s familiar flavour is turning up in forms that would once have seemed unlikely, thanks to culinary experimenters and coffee innovators.

At Yura, ITC Grand Chola’s Japanese restaurant, Executive Chef Nikhil Nagpal has taken filter kaapi into gelato. The aim, he says, was to start with a flavour that people instantly recognise and give it a different form. The challenge was to preserve its roasted notes and characteristic bitterness while balancing them with the creaminess and sweetness of gelato.

“I see it as both,” Nikhil says of whether the dessert is a nod to familiarity or evidence of filter coffee’s versatility. “Filter coffee has a distinctive flavour profile that lends itself to much more than a traditional cup.”

At Stubborn Baker, the same flavour finds its way into macarons and tiramisu. Tanvi Bokaria uses freshly ground filter coffee to make a pure decoction for both. In the macarons, the concentrated flavour is infused into a German buttercream, where the fat helps carry it through the filling without compromising its texture. For her, the choice is also personal. “Being born and raised in Chennai, filter coffee has always felt like the soul of Madras to me,” they say.

Tiramisu, meanwhile, already has a long-standing relationship with coffee. Chef Siddharth Ray, executive chef at The Park Chennai, traces the hotel’s version to 2005, when Italian chef Antonio Carluccio introduced his recipe and suggested incorporating South Indian filter coffee. The result became The Park Style Tiramisu, a dessert that has remained on the menu for 21 years.

“For us, the filter coffee is more than a substitute for espresso; it is the detail that makes this tiramisu unmistakably ours,” Siddharth says. The coffee’s roasted aroma and rounded intensity work with the mascarpone, while its bitterness balances the sweetness.

Behind the bar, filter coffee takes on a different role. At The Leather Bar, Maami’s Martini combines fresh Mylapore filter coffee decoction with Irish whiskey and coffee liqueur. Tarun Devrani, director of food and beverage, describes it as a playful interpretation of the modern Mylapore maami. The idea was to bring together these contrasting worlds without one overpowering the other. “The key is to let the coffee complement the whiskey rather than overpower it,” he says. The concept also challenges the familiar image of the Mylapore maami. “She embraces her roots but has a personality that goes well beyond tradition. By day, she might be known for her filter coffee; after hours, she’s at The Leather Bar, sipping on a Maami’s Martini and owning her spirited, unconventional side,” he explains.

Karl Fernandes, operations head and beverage consultant at Roc-a-Coe, has also explored filter coffee in cocktails. In the R-A-C espresso martini, dates bring caramel-like sweetness, while pandan adds an aromatic, almost vanilla-like note. His Horchata de masula takes a creamier approach, combining filter coffee with a Goan horchata made with almond and cashew nut milk, finished with cardamom. The nuts lend a mellow richness, softening the coffee’s roasted bitterness, while the cardamom adds a gentle warmth.

“There’s something interesting about taking a flavour people grew up with and presenting it in a cocktail,” Fernandes says. “It creates an instant connection, but also gives us room to explore it in a completely different way.” For Sidhant, these experiments need not displace the traditional cup. “It will be a peaceful and happy coexistence. Each has their own place in this world as long as the brackets do not emphasise filter coffee as a flavour profile and more of a brewing method.”

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