Coffee on the Highway

The highways of Tamilnadu are dotted with stalls selling filter coffee. Not just any coffee but Kumbakonam filter coffee or Kumbakonam degree coffee. 

On a road trip last week, hubby was feeling a bit drowsy so we stopped at this coffee stall for a bit of a pick me up.

Basic, no frills. Moulded plastic chairs and tables, packaged drinking water, fizzy drinks and a small assortment of biscuits and chips on sale. The main business was filter coffee.   

There were interesting things dotted around the stall. This picture of the two donkeys for instance, which proclaims in Tamil 'yennai paar yogam varum' - look at me and you shall prosper. Never seen anything like it before.

Or this assortment of things strung together to ward off the evil eye.

The little corner where the filter coffee is prepared and served in gleaming brass davara tumbler sets. 

I was intrigued by the term Kumbakonam degree coffee and poking around the net I discovered that unadulterated milk was called degree milk because the lactometer used had markings for reading the purity of milk which resembled the markings or degrees of temperature on a thermometer and that was how degree came to mean filter coffee made with unadulterated cow's milk.

There is one theory that the word chicory which is added to the coffee powder got corrupted to degree but there are those who disagree.

If you are serving degree coffee then it must be served in the brass davara and tumbler set. Kumbakonam is famous for its brassware and its filter coffee. 

As we left I saw this little cardboard box with these prickly green pods and asked what they were used for and I was told it was to ward off the evil eye.
Have you stopped to have filter coffee at a KDC or Kumbakonam degree coffee shop on the highways of Tamil Nadu? What was the experience like?