Bru, I haz it!

First off, big thanks to Vims, Bhama, and everyone else who suggested that I try Bru for my south Indian coffee needs! No surprise, but you guys were quite right.

This afternoon I opened my door and found a package on my doorstep. It was from T, and it contained two pounds of Bru! That woman is a hero.

I pretty quickly set about testing this product. The first thing I noticed was that it smelled more or less like plain ol' coffee (it's a coffee-chicory blend). It was also very finely ground, and tended to clump. I put some in my trusty south Indian coffee maker, boiled water, poured it on, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It took ages to brew! Way longer than the other coffee I'd used. Eventually I semi-despaired and did a little knitting my sweater sleeve. I must've seemed somewhat out of sync with reality I suppose...sitting and knitting a wool sweater while I wait for my hot  coffee to brew when it's 88 degrees out. But eventually the coffee was done, so I mixed it with hot milk and sugar poured it into tumblers and Robert and I tasted it.

The moment of truth.

It was good! Much better than the regular American style coffee I'd tried the first go. Was it true south Indian flavor (or better yet, Prakruthi quality) in every way? No. Hopefully some of that can be chalked up to my newb status, but even if it never gets better this coffee was pretty good. It tasted of India and made both me and Robert happy.

So, hooray for blogs and friends! Without you all I'd still be wandering, lost, in a south Indian coffee-less universe!

Coffee news!

I have several coffee notes this morning.

The first is that my dad loves the south Indian coffee maker I got for him! He has a couple other non-electric coffee makers (a french press and a Costa Rican coffee maker), and wasn't sure that the south Indian one would be all that different, but was very gracious about it all the same. Then he used it, and called to tell me how different the coffee made in it (in the traditional south Indian way) was! So that was very exciting-- for both of us!

And then, yesterday, T called me. T is a devoted lover of coffee, and when we'd met for lunch and shoe shopping last week, I'd bemoaned my lack of properly south Indian tasting coffee. I'd also mentioned that my lovely blog readers had recommended a certain type of coffee, available at many Indian grocers, to me. There aren't any Indian grocers particularly close to me, so I was still living in a south Indian coffee-less universe.

So, as I said, T called yesterday. She was at an Indian grocery store, and had just sent me a picture. Was it the coffee I wanted?

It was! So she bought two bags for me, and I will collect them when I next see her, in a couple of weeks. Can you feel the antici..................................pation?