Filter coffee
The Ethiopians may have their special brews, the Colombians may claim the coffee as their own, but there is nothing that compares to the feeling of piping hot filter coffee served in steel tumblers for an Indian. The filters themselves are a treasured memory of grandmothers, misty mornings and gorgeous aromas.
Indian filter coffee is a coffee drink made by mixing frothed and boiled milk with the infusion obtained by percolation brewing of finely ground coffee powder in a traditional Indian filter.[citation needed] Internationally, the drink is referred to as Madras filter coffee or South Indian filter coffee to distinguish it from drip brew coffee, which is normally known as filter coffee.
South Indian filter coffee is brewed with a metal device that resembles two cylindrical cups, one of which has a pierced bottom that nests into the top of the 'tumbler' cup, leaving ample room beneath to receive the brewed coffee. The upper cup has two removable parts: a pierced pressing disc with a central stem handle and a covering lid. (A similar device is used to brew Vietnamese coffee.)
The upper cup is loaded with freshly ground coffee. The grounds are then compressed (tamped) with the stemmed disc into a uniform layer across the cup's pierced bottom. The coarser the coffee grinds, the more one must tamp the coffee to obtain the same extraction. With the press disc remaining in place, the upper cup is nested into the top of the tumbler; boiling water is poured in. The lid is placed on top, and the appliance is left to slowly drip the brewed coffee into the bottom. The chicory retains the hot water longer, letting the water dissolve and extract more of the ground coffee.
The resulting brew is generally much stronger than Western drip/filter coffee, and often stronger than espresso
