I have always confused my macchiato with my mocha or my latte with my cappuccino… and I am sick of places that serve coffee by the bucketful… I am a bit unsure about coffee bars that somehow seem to have "reinvented" coffee and have rejuvenated it as the latest lifestyle product…
I'm not a big coffee drinker. I rarely drink it in cafes or restaurants. I prefer not to go out to one of those trendy high street coffee bars and pay the equivalent of at least Rs.500 for a small cup. They do serve coffee from all over the world and the aromas around those cafe shops are breathtaking... But the catch is that the customer pays through the nose. A second catch is that you are sitting in a place designed by consumer analysts; where the decor is carefully selected to entice; manipulate and part you from your cash ;)
After having sampled the delights of coffee from different places… I have to conclude that there is only one place to drink it – in India and there is only one establishment to drink it in – the Indian Coffee House (ICH). I've visited branches in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Ernakulam, Trivandrum, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and many other places… and I've never been disappointed.
An Indian Coffee House is a pretty basic place... where the decor generally takes a back seat to the low prices and delicious food; which varies from region to region. Unlike the new, trendy coffee bars now in India... there is no long and winding coffee menu to choose from. Coffee comes as coffee... no frills; no fancy names and it's very delicious. For a handful of rupees per cup... you can't complain.
I do not wish to take anything away from the trendy Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day or Costa coffee bars. After all; the managements at the various head offices put a lot of time into thinking about product placement, branding, positioning, target groups, performance indicators, market penetration and all manner of ways to make you part with your hard earned cash.
In stark contrast; ICH possess a certain authenticity… and that's what I like about the Indian Coffee House. It operates as a worker's co-operative, unmolested by the cynicism and profiteering of the corporate world. For better or worse, it shows. Maybe it's a place trapped in time. Perhaps it's a place in time that I prefer.
When I was in Indore... for my family and many like us; the Indian Coffee House was the only place for eating out. I am talking about at least fifteen years back. Naturally it established its very own special place in my heart. At the age of seven I thought Masala Dosa was the only thing one could eat outside ones home. Years later, while on this particular vacation with papa, mummy and Betty, sitting at one of the Indian Coffee Houses on my way to Trivandrum which was near a railway station. This establishes the fact that each ICH has its own distinct character. This one had good food served in a strange leaning-tower-of-Pisa-like spiral building. Waiters were dressed in shabby, white uniforms. The long pagdi's on the waiters are usually a metaphor for the type of service on offer: clean, starched and upright. But one thing is always guaranteed: the idli's, masala dosha's, biryani's or just plain "toast bread jam" will be excellent. Black & white framed photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi adorn the walls of ICH...
I just miss the coffee house at RNT Marg in Indore… An old dingy place with ceiling made of wood. The cheap wooden tables colored to give an impression of mahogany. Those two big glass jars at the manager's desk. The manager used to return even fifty paise of the change but would never smile. I still have the memories of going there with my friends after exams and sometimes in the evenings. We usually had the masala dosa and veg cutlet and I used to enjoy the place more than I have enjoyed any other restaurant. Me and my school friends used to celebrate our B'day treats at ICH. Now that's a change… When I was in school there was nothing better than hanging out with friends at a cycle parking behind the school, now these school goers hang out in coffee shops. Not that this change isn't good or anything, its just that I am nostalgic, besides I want to know what happened to that group of oldies, those waiters, that manager and those tables.
More than the passing years, the changes around us make us feel older. I am now twenty seven years old, on the verge of wrapping up another disgustingly deplorable year of my filthy unproductive life, but even in this small duration of my excretory existence, I have encountered a plethora of changes.
Some good and some bad… But ICH remains unchanged… Kudos to the unchanged waiters, the uniforms, decor, coffee and the spirit of ICH!!!
I'm not a big coffee drinker. I rarely drink it in cafes or restaurants. I prefer not to go out to one of those trendy high street coffee bars and pay the equivalent of at least Rs.500 for a small cup. They do serve coffee from all over the world and the aromas around those cafe shops are breathtaking... But the catch is that the customer pays through the nose. A second catch is that you are sitting in a place designed by consumer analysts; where the decor is carefully selected to entice; manipulate and part you from your cash ;)
After having sampled the delights of coffee from different places… I have to conclude that there is only one place to drink it – in India and there is only one establishment to drink it in – the Indian Coffee House (ICH). I've visited branches in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Ernakulam, Trivandrum, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and many other places… and I've never been disappointed.
An Indian Coffee House is a pretty basic place... where the decor generally takes a back seat to the low prices and delicious food; which varies from region to region. Unlike the new, trendy coffee bars now in India... there is no long and winding coffee menu to choose from. Coffee comes as coffee... no frills; no fancy names and it's very delicious. For a handful of rupees per cup... you can't complain.
I do not wish to take anything away from the trendy Starbucks, Cafe Coffee Day or Costa coffee bars. After all; the managements at the various head offices put a lot of time into thinking about product placement, branding, positioning, target groups, performance indicators, market penetration and all manner of ways to make you part with your hard earned cash.
In stark contrast; ICH possess a certain authenticity… and that's what I like about the Indian Coffee House. It operates as a worker's co-operative, unmolested by the cynicism and profiteering of the corporate world. For better or worse, it shows. Maybe it's a place trapped in time. Perhaps it's a place in time that I prefer.
When I was in Indore... for my family and many like us; the Indian Coffee House was the only place for eating out. I am talking about at least fifteen years back. Naturally it established its very own special place in my heart. At the age of seven I thought Masala Dosa was the only thing one could eat outside ones home. Years later, while on this particular vacation with papa, mummy and Betty, sitting at one of the Indian Coffee Houses on my way to Trivandrum which was near a railway station. This establishes the fact that each ICH has its own distinct character. This one had good food served in a strange leaning-tower-of-Pisa-like spiral building. Waiters were dressed in shabby, white uniforms. The long pagdi's on the waiters are usually a metaphor for the type of service on offer: clean, starched and upright. But one thing is always guaranteed: the idli's, masala dosha's, biryani's or just plain "toast bread jam" will be excellent. Black & white framed photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi adorn the walls of ICH...
I just miss the coffee house at RNT Marg in Indore… An old dingy place with ceiling made of wood. The cheap wooden tables colored to give an impression of mahogany. Those two big glass jars at the manager's desk. The manager used to return even fifty paise of the change but would never smile. I still have the memories of going there with my friends after exams and sometimes in the evenings. We usually had the masala dosa and veg cutlet and I used to enjoy the place more than I have enjoyed any other restaurant. Me and my school friends used to celebrate our B'day treats at ICH. Now that's a change… When I was in school there was nothing better than hanging out with friends at a cycle parking behind the school, now these school goers hang out in coffee shops. Not that this change isn't good or anything, its just that I am nostalgic, besides I want to know what happened to that group of oldies, those waiters, that manager and those tables.
More than the passing years, the changes around us make us feel older. I am now twenty seven years old, on the verge of wrapping up another disgustingly deplorable year of my filthy unproductive life, but even in this small duration of my excretory existence, I have encountered a plethora of changes.
Some good and some bad… But ICH remains unchanged… Kudos to the unchanged waiters, the uniforms, decor, coffee and the spirit of ICH!!!
