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The Coffee 100 · make it at home

Filter kaapi, the South Indian way, poured until it froths

20 min (15 to drip) · 2 tumblers

The breakfast coffee of Mumbai's Udupi cafés like Café Madras and every Tamil and Karnataka home: chicory-coffee decoction, dripped slowly through a steel filter, mixed with boiled milk and poured back and forth until it's foamy.

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The real one

You need

• 4 tbsp (about 25 g) South Indian filter coffee powder (80 to 85% coffee, 15 to 20% chicory), ground fine
• 200 ml (3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) boiling water
• 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) whole milk
• 2 to 3 tsp sugar
• A two-part South Indian steel coffee filter, and a steel davara-tumbler set (or two cups)

How to make it

1. Load (1 min): Put the coffee powder in the top chamber of the filter, tap it level and place the pressing disc on top lightly.
2. Decoct (15 min): Pour the boiling water into the top chamber, close the lid and leave it to drip, undisturbed, into the bottom chamber. You'll get about 100 ml of thick, dark decoction. The first drops are the strongest.
3. Milk (5 min): Bring the milk to a full boil and let it rise once.
4. Mix (1 min): In each tumbler, put 2 to 3 tbsp decoction and 1 tsp sugar, then fill with hot milk.
5. Pour (30 sec): Pour the coffee from the tumbler to the davara and back from a height, 4 or 5 times, until a thick froth forms. Serve in the tumbler set in the davara.

Tips

• No filter? Make a very strong pour-over with 25 g filter-coffee powder and 120 ml water, poured slowly.
• Pure coffee without chicory works but tastes thinner; chicory gives the body and slight bitterness.
• Decoction keeps 1 day in the fridge. Heat the milk fresh.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any café's recipe.