or if coffee isn’t your cup of tea then in that case you can use the good old “all that glitters is not gold”…
Recently I noticed that we were running low on maal (those who know me know what I mean, those who don’t can read here). So instead of doing the decent thing I ended up visiting amazon on the phone. Sacrilege! I tell you but anyway there it was, my infidelity on display out in the open. I searched for filter coffee, selected tried and trusted Hatti coffee, then got distracted by a new Lavazza so that too got added to the cart and then I saw a nice looking package that said Coorgest on it… well how wrong could one go with something that said Coorg on it?? So in that went as well…. at this point a client pinged on skype so I completed the payment on amazon and moved back to work.
A couple of days later the first bag of coffee to arrive was the Lavazza . The last bag of Ainmane (oh how I am missing you) had ended in the morning so this was just in time compilation at it’s best… Java tussi great ho. I figured this one would do well in the moca-pot so after lunch I did the whole jumping through hoops to set up the moca-pot and brewed the first mug. Disaster! too burnt, hint of bitter gourd nothing like coffee. Or at least nothing like the mellow flavour of Arabica that one has come to relish, definitely more Robusta than a can of paint peeler. The wife actually had to throw her mug away, as for me, well let’s just say Khan paisa khaata hai (it’s a story of this strapping pathan who goes to chandni chowk looking for patisa because he has heard about it a lot and is handed a cake of soap by a trader and then the pathan walks the streets of Delhi eating the soap and foaming at the mouth explaining to whoever cares to ask that he paid for the patisa and whatever the taste be like he couldn’t throw it away). I finished it and then had a long hard think about what I was doing with my life.
The next day Coorgest and Hatti arrived. Hatti obviously I know is very good coffee. Coorgest I was curious about. So I went ahead and opened that bag. Figured might as well open a second parallel bag and if it works just quietly discard the Lavazza. Second time unlucky! As I started to open the bag I saw the fine print partially hidden by a price label 70% coffee and 30% chicory. I get headaches from chicory. Damn why did I stray away from Ainmane? All I had to do was visit the damned site and place the order. Why would I go through the process of reinventing the wheel at Amazon? Anyway I figured let’s see lets give it another chance. So Coorgest got brewed in the espresso machine and as expected…. it was not a pleasant rest of the day. Let’s just say Khan paise ke baad combiflam khaata hai.
So anyway that evening we went out for a walk, a longish walk to contemplate my life choices and how I was going through this acute midlife crisis and how to handle all this infidelity. Essentially how to fix my roving eye. On the way back, with obviously nary a clue about how we were going to fix me, we stopped at a local grocery mart and on a whim I picked up a tetra pack of fresh cream (more of those aforementioned bad life choices but then bear me out).
Next morning I woke up early …in fact hadn’t slept much. No this time it wasn’t because I was brooding over my life choices… I had been up with an ailing server at a datacenter in Australia till 2:30AM and then the client called from Bundoora at 5AM (because they’re 5.5 hours ahead of us and it was 10:30 for them aah well… time zones). Usually I like it when that happens because it gives me a head start and I can spend time setting up the camera to take a time lapse of the sunrise, put out grains for the birds (they never start eating before sunrise), brew a perfect slow pour batch of coffee, maybe even go out for a run by myself and get stuff for the wife and kids (usually strawberries, bakery stuff or some such)… essentially a 2 hour head start… but as I rolled out of bed and told Joseph that I will check the firewall in 5 minutes I let out a loud groan… there was bad coffee in the kitchen…
Twenty minutes later the camera was setup and doing it’s stuff on a glorious sunrise, the meditation music was playing in the background, the birds had been provided for and I had taken care of the snafu at the server. Next up time to tackle the coffee. I am an optimization specialist, I make things work and I make them work well within limited resources. I never give up (in fact I have been told by multiple clients and partners that I am a battering ram who does not give up). The coffee I was going to fix. So I started by thoroughly cleaning the espresso to make sure I had an unpolluted environment (always keep your desk clear, a clean desk is a clear head). Next I used one scoop of the powder instead of three, added just a quarter scoop more, because, Zen and the art of brewing. I used warm water to do a mild pour over just to wet the powder. Then I closed up the machine and let it do its business. The moment the brewing finished I switched off the power, somehow I feel that the carafe warmer plate adds to the cooking/burning process and gives the coffee a bit of a charred effect which is disastrous for robusta. Next I added cream to milk in a separate mug and whipped it before heating it all up followed by more vigorous beating with a fork (I usually use this egg whisk but today somehow preferred the fork… no the egg whisk is never used for beating eggs or anything else… no not even cake batter)… next I warmed the mugs in the microwave and added the coffee from the machine and like a true Barista did the classic pour… at some point I will figure out how to make those flowers and swans and all… for now let’s just say it looks magical but not artistic.
The wife was up by now and curled up on the couch taking a breather before the day, along with the rest of her three rowdy inmates, hit her. We finished our delicious coffees in silence. It was blissful. It was like life has meaning again and all indiscretions are pardoned. After what felt like an hour she says “this was great what did you use?“. I was tempted to say “arre I woke up early, drove to Coorg, threw the bag of Coorgest at the gate of that horror story and then drove to Ainmane and got us our good maal back“…. I didn’t. I just replied “cream fixes everything“. To which she replied “boss you have almost a months worth of coffee powder, that much of cream will mean we would need a new wardrobe before the next bag of coffee from Ainmane“. I thought for a while and then I replied “life is too short for bad coffee!” to myself I said “to compensate I’ll give up carbs and switch to a keto diet till this coffee lasts”
To be sure life really is too short and not just for bad coffee. As I grow older, as I grow supposedly wiser I realize that life is too short for all types of bull shit. Niceties are overrated. If you like me for what I am great be in my life. If you do not understand me I suggest you do not break your head trying to, and in the process wasting too much of your time, because life is too short for trying to win over people, people will always move on after you’re gone even your very own kids will forget you so might as well live a little for your own self by your own rules. If you like someone talk to them and get on with it, don’t waste time waiting for the right situation, if they are meant to be in your life they will be and if they play hard to get, why screw them they’re not mature enough to waste your time on… because life is too short for all that song and dance of social acrobatics. Do your own thing and exactly how you want to do it not how someone before you did it or how someone you know suggested that you do it, after all this is your moment to shine for yourself to succeed for yourself to fail for your own bloody self, there is no merit in competing with the other rats out there… you are your one and only competition why bother running someone else’s race when you can race your own self and win every single day by just being better than what you were yesterday… because life is too short to waste by living it by someone else’s rules.
Anyway so for now coffee is rescued. Next up figuring out how to start running again regularly… I used to be an avid runner before it became trendy, much before Milind Soman discovered bare foot running I was doing it along palm beach road… and then I stopped… if only I could just switch that thing back on now… wouldn’t need to worry about all the cream I would need to rescue myself from all my bad life choices… now would I?!