How to order coffee

What's an espresso? Read on to find out all about that hot cup of coffee.

Akhil grew up in Guwahati "" nothing wrong with that, some eminently normal people have been known to live there "" but it did impair his levels of sophistication.

As a man about town in Delhi, therefore, Akhil cannot understand why he can't find a cup of perfectly brewed espresso anywhere in the city.

Now here's the rub. Akhil asks for an espresso at the end of a meal at 360º, the 24x7 diner at The Oberoi. The waitress places a thimble in front of him, instead of a generous-sized cup.

Oh well, sighs Akhil, everyone in this big city is on the make. He sips from his thimble, only to have his hair stand on edge. The coffee "" coffee? "" is strong enough to make him choke. Thank god there's so little of it "" but is it an espresso?

In Guwahati, Akhil was used to ordering his espresso from the railway station (friends reported it had the best coffee in town), or from the roadside hangouts where he'd chill with singharas (that's samosas to you and me "" this is Guwahati, remember?) and a cup of the foamiest, frothiest espresso any side of the Suez.

For most Indians, a cup of espresso is what Akhil has been looking for "" a watered-down version of the original, all tepid water and milk, with just the tiniest hint of coffee, a head that fills half the cup, and dusted over with drinking chocolate. If that wants to make you throw up, get real "" it's what you'll get all the way from Patna to Kochi almost without exception.

So here's everything you wanted to know about coffee but didn't know whom to ask. Not the Barista and Cafe Coffee Day and Starbucks variety, which is about cappuccino and mocha and latte, and other variants, all of them listed like so many mocktails in a bar menu.

Out there you aren't on your own, with enough signboards to tell you the amount of chocolate inside your coffee, and where your cofffee bean is from, and so on.

The problem is in all those fancy-shmancy places where the bossman says make mine an espresso, and you say make that two. Well, the world over, an espresso is a strong brew, and you'd better learn to tell the difference if you don't want to come across as a Johnny-come-lately in town.

Essentially, restaurants have three kinds of coffee. The espresso comes in two varieties "" a single shot (which you can survive) and a double shot (which you probably won't if you're reading this). It takes a little getting used to, is always served in a tiny cup, and should be had without milk or sugar (gulp!).

The kind that you're likely to find gentler on the palate "" and at least a little like the "espressos" of the Indian hinterland "" is the cappuccino, froth and all.

It has a cinammony-chocolately flavour, is somewhat less potent, has milk added to the mix, and you can heap as much sugar in it as you like, though to avoid appearing like you just walked in from Guwahati, you might want to ask for brown or caramelised sugar instead of white sugar to go with it.

Your safest bet, though, and often the best coffee to be served, is a cup of freshly brewed coffee. If the beans are freshly ground, its aroma alone will make you lust for it. If, however, it's been sitting on the burner, it's likely to be bitter. But you're in your rights to reject anything that isn't, well, freshly brewed...

Where you need to be most careful, however, is if someone asks you if you'd like a cup of Turkish coffee. This is a thick sludge of coffee that is so bitter and so strong, it's guaranteed to put hair on your chest. Have it only under excruciating circumstances "" unless you like the damn stuff. Apparently, people more sophisticated than yours truly do.