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The International Writers Magazine: Coffee Culture
The
Indian Coffee House Chain: Simply Coffee
Colin Todhunter
I
love coffee. I have drunk it all over the world, from England
to Austria and from Canada to India. I drink it wherever and whenever
I can. But I rarely drink coffee in cafés or restaurants
in the UK. I refuse to go to one of the trendy high street coffee
bars that have sprung up during the past decade and pay the equivalent
of at least 160 rupees for a small cup. They serve coffee from
all over the world and the aromas are beautiful, but the catch
is that the customer pays through the nose. A second catch is
that you are sitting in world, designed by consumer analysts,
where the décor is very carefully (some would say, cynically)
selected to entice, manipulate and make you part with your hard
earned cash.
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The big coffee house
chains are beginning to dominate the world. They are loved by those
who want an expensive cup of coffee in the morning, and hated by anti-globalisers
and those who despise the homogenisation of cafe culture. All is not
yet lost however as traditional coffee houses still thrive and offer
a better experience. In places such as Austria they have existed for
decades and a part of the fabric of a town or city. The coffee blows
your head off! I recall visiting a coffee house in Vienna and was given
a thimble-like container of black coffee. Although I was highly disappointed
with the quantity, after one sip I realised that this was no ordinary
strength coffee. It was the super-concentrated type, of rocket fuel
strength. Decent if rather strong coffee served in a coffee house that
had been part and parcel of the local community for generations.
The Kaffeehäuser of Vienna have more in common with Parisian literary
cafés or English pubs than they do with modern espresso bars
that serve latté in paper cups. Both are from different worlds.
And then from quite another place entirely there is McDonalds, Burger
King and all of those fast food joints that serve coffee by the bucket
(or should that be from the bucket?) in paper cups. Somehow drinking
coffee from a paper cup in a fast food place doesnt feel quite
the same as drinking coffee in a Viennese coffee house. It doesnt
taste the same either. Sadly, these days those traditional houses are
facing strong competition from McDonalds and the rest.
After having sampled the delights of coffee around the globe, I have
come to conclude that there is only one place to drink it: India. And
there is only one establishment to drink it in the Indian Coffee
House. There are around 160 branches throughout the country. Ive
visited branches in Shimla, Allahabad, Pondicherry, Calcutta, Trivandrum
and many places beside and have never been disappointed. Whenever I
visit a new place, one of the first things I do is find out whether
there is an ICH in town.
Black and white framed photographs of Nehru, Gandhi, and Indira Gandhi
usually adorn the walls of each ICH and the waiters are dressed in shabby,
white (well whitish) uniforms. They are pretty basic places where the
decor generally takes a back seat to the low prices and delicious dosas
and masala dishes on offer. Things are cheap and simple in the ICH.
Unlike the new, trendy coffee bars now in India, there is no long and
winding menu of coffee types to choose from. There is no need to confuse
your latte with your cappuccinos or your macchiato with your _mocha.
Coffee comes as coffee, no frills, no fancy names. And its absolutely
delicious. For four or five rupees per cup, you can't complain.
Each ICH seems to have its own clientele. Depending on which branch
you happen to be in you may be rubbing shoulders with vacationing families,
lawyers, students or men who sit at wobbly tables on wobbly chairs,
hiding behind newspapers and discussing the issues of the day. And each
ICH has its own distinct character. For example, the one in Trivandrum,
near the train station has good food served in a strange leaning-tower-of-Pisa-like
spiral building. Others however can be a bit dingy and dont have
most of the items on the menu. The elaborate head-dress on the waiters
is a usually a metaphor for the type of service on offer: clean, starched
and upright or limp and ill-fitting. But one thing is always guaranteed:
the fare will be excellent.
ICH Coffee House |
Unlike
the trendy Starbucks, Café Nero or Costa coffee bars in the
West, traditional coffee houses possess a certain authenticity.
That's what I like about the ICH. It operates as a workers
co-operative and is unmolested by the cynicism of the corporate
world. And for better or worse, it shows. Maybe its a place
trapped in time. But its a place in time that I prefer. |
After all, coffee
is just coffee and its been around for ages. That is until someone rediscovered
it then reinvented it as the latest lifestyle product. You can keep
your double mint _mocha decaf skim latté. Just give
me plain old coffee in simple and homely surroundings. My coffee house
awaits
© Colin Todhunter July 2005
colin_todhunter@yahoo.co.uk
Previously by Colin
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How
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Todhunter
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EXPRESS: TRAVEL TALES FROM INDIA
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Now available as an e-book
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