💬 Airport cafe called it filter coffee. It was Nescafe in warm milk.

Flying back to Riyadh last month I had a 3 hour wait at Hyderabad airport. I wanted one thing. Filter coffee, the proper kind, before another 6 months of machine coffee at my workplace. The cafe near gate 14 had a board saying South Indian Filter Coffee, 180 rupees. I paid without thinking. Then the girl at the counter pressed a button on a machine. I should have walked away right there. It came in a paper cup with a lid. Brown, flat, no foam, and a sad skin on top. I asked her, is there decoction in this? She said, sir, it's the filter coffee mix. A powder, in a sachet. I stood there holding 180 rupees of disappointment and a plastic stirrer. A man behind me said, same thing happened to me. I took 1 sip and left it on a bench. First time I've ever wasted coffee in my life. At home my mother does it the old way. Strong decoction, hot milk, and a steel tumbler with a dabara. My father pours it from one to the other, high up, until a layer of froth sits on top. The high pour cools it down and builds the froth. For me the froth is the whole sign. No froth, I won't call it filter coffee. I'll call it brown milk and move on. I don't fuss about much else. Plastic chairs, steel plates, a noisy fan, all fine with me. But if the board says filter coffee, make filter coffee. That's all I'm asking from anyone. Does anyone know a cafe in Hyderabad that still does the tumbler and froth properly? I'm back in March and I already know where I'm going first. Send me your place.

180 rupees for coffee in warm milk is robbery with a smile. I once bought filter coffee at a Bengaluru airport that came in a proper steel tumbler, and the 150 rupees felt fair.

Agree, and the tumbler and davara make a difference too. In a mug it just tastes like any coffee. A colleague from Chennai showed me how to pour it from a height, back and forth. I spilled half on my shirt. 2 weeks of practice in the kitchen in Kukatpally. Now I get a decent froth on most days. My wife still uses a mug for hers. I've stopped arguing about it.