How to Make South Indian Filter Coffee at Home

There's a good chance you've got a steel filter in a cupboard and only a vague idea of what to do with it. Here's the whole thing, start to finish, with numbers.

In short: fill the top chamber with about 15 g (two heaped tablespoons) of coffee ground like fine rava, wet it with 30 ml of water, then top up with water just off the boil and leave it 10 to 20 minutes. Mix 30 ml of that decoction with 120 ml of hot milk and pull it between tumbler and dabara until it froths.

What you'll need

• A stainless steel filter. The two-part Madras filter. A 200 ml one makes two cups and costs ₹400 to ₹900.
• Fresh coffee, ground for filter. This matters more than everything else put together.
• Full-fat milk. Toned milk makes a thinner cup.
• A dabara set, if you have one. It cools the coffee and builds the froth.

The South Indian filter coffee grind

A filter is a slow brewer. Water sits on the coffee for 10 to 20 minutes and drips through under its own weight, so the grind has two jobs. It has to be fine enough to give up its flavour, and coarse enough to let water through.

Aim for the texture of fine rava. Rub a pinch between your fingers: sand with a little powder in it. Not flour, not sugar.

• Too coarse and the water races through. The decoction comes out pale, thin and sour.
• Too fine and the bed sets like concrete. It drips for 40 minutes or stops, and what comes through is bitter.

Buying online? Ask for the South Indian Filter grind by name. Of ours, Velvet Mocha comes in it, ground the morning it ships. The rest come as whole beans or as Powder, an all-round medium grind that's coarser than fine rava, so for a dabara, buy whole beans and grind them yourself. Our grind size chart shows how it compares to every other grind.

What about chicory?

Chicory is a roasted root, not coffee. It came into Indian filter blends when coffee was expensive and stayed because people liked it: more body, a dark caramel bitterness and a blacker decoction.

• 80:20 is the classic. Coffee first, chicory for weight and colour.
• 70:30 is what most shop-bought filter powder is. Heavier, more bitter, cheaper to make.
• 100% coffee is cleaner and sweeter, and you can taste which coffee you bought.

There's no right answer, only what you grew up on. If you want the classic taste, buy chicory separately and mix it in. That way you choose the ratio.

How to make the decoction

Decoction is the strong black coffee that collects in the bottom chamber. Everything after this is adding milk.

1. Measure. About 15 g per cup. Three or four heaped spoons fill a 200 ml filter and give you about 60 ml of decoction.
2. Load it. Level the coffee, set the pressing disc on top and give it a gentle quarter-turn. Don't press down.
3. Wet it first. Pour about 30 ml of water, just enough to dampen the grounds, and wait 30 seconds while it puffs up.
4. Fill and cover. Take the kettle off the boil, count to twenty, then top up. Boiling water scorches the coffee. Lid on.
5. Leave it alone. 10 to 20 minutes, dripping steadily. Every time you lift the lid, it cools and slows.

Building the cup

For every 30 ml of decoction, use 120 ml of hot milk. That's about two tablespoons of decoction to half a cup of milk. For a stronger cup, use 40 ml of decoction and keep the milk the same.

1. Heat the milk until it's steaming, not boiling hard.
2. Stir the sugar into the milk. It dissolves better and you'll use less.
3. Decoction into the tumbler, hot milk on top.
4. Pour it back and forth between tumbler and dabara, from a height, six or seven times. It cools the coffee and builds the froth.

Drink it straight away. Ten minutes on the counter and the milk goes flat.

Three habits that make it easier

• Make the decoction the night before. It keeps in a covered jar in the fridge for two days, so a morning cup takes 90 seconds.
• Rinse the filter, don't scrub it. Hot water only. Soap sits in the holes and you'll taste it. Once a month, soak both parts in hot water with a spoon of baking soda.
• Open one 250 g bag at a time. That's about two weeks for one person, which is how long ground coffee stays interesting. Ours comes as sealed 250 g bags, so the next one stays shut until you need it. More on that in roast date vs expiry date.

If something went wrong

What happened	Usually because
Dripped through in two minutes, thin and sour	Grind too coarse, or not enough coffee
Filter stalled	Grind too fine, or the disc was pressed down
Bitter and harsh	Boiling water, or a dark blend heavy on chicory
Tastes of very little	Stale coffee. Check the roast date
No froth	Not pulled from high enough, or the milk was too cool

Bitterness is the most common complaint, and there's a whole piece on fixing it. Coming from a jar of instant? Here's what changes: filter coffee vs instant coffee. And for the story of why the south drinks coffee this way, read kaapi, explained.

Which coffee to use

• Velvet Mocha was built for the steel filter. Dark chocolate and a gentle sweetness that holds up to milk, and it's the one we sell in the South Indian Filter grind.
• Toasted Almond is medium-bodied with a baked-cookie sweetness, so you can cut back the sugar.
• Cookie Bandit is chocolate, brown sugar and caramel. Lovely black too.

Not sure which suits you? The coffee quiz takes a minute. And for the recipe without the explaining, pin up our South Indian filter brew guide.