make cafe style coffee at home.

i have a milk-ick. probably residual trauma from my Amma forcing glasses of it down my throat as a child. with my newfound voice as 5th grader (yes, i rebelled early) i refused milk.
but she is my Amma, so she gave me an ultimatum – if you refuse milk, you refuse it in all forms – most importantly filter kaapi. 

not the one to back down, i agreed. it started off as an experiment. sneaking few drops of decoction to test my tolerance when my mother wasn’t around – wanted to save face you see. what surprised me was that I liked it. thus began my black coffee journey. Amma always gave us milk without sugar so the transition to black coffee without sugar felt natural.  
growing up, it was a source of pride that I could stomach quite effortlessly what my peers considered a “bitter” pill to swallow. 

i stumbled into the world of specialty coffee in 2018 and drinking my coffee black fed the rapacious quest of expanding my palate. 
years of pourovers and immersions have gone by and i find myself not being able to enjoy specific concoctions given that either had milk or syrups in it. even in a wonderfully curated specialty menu, I would stick to enjoying my pourovers and iced americanos. 
it’s high time i practiced what I preach and set that prejudice aside. 
so here’s step one. getting my taste buds used to coffee with milk with a classic instant kaapi. 

I will be honest, lattes feel like a whole meal to me at this point. doesn’t have the light, caffeinated feeling that black gives me and the aftertaste is usually icky milk. takes some getting used to.