Along with jigarthanda, parotta and biryani, Madurai also takes its coffee seriously. “Coffee is a drink and filter coffee is an emotion,” says B Viswanathan, as he sips the city’s most popular brand, the Visalam coffee. “It tastes better than at home,” says the customer of three decades nonchalantly.
At noon, the narrow platform where the coffee shop has been holding fort for 63 years, is crowded with people. The shop celebrates its signature blend with hundreds of customers six days a week, many of whom have maintained their bond for years.
Located off one of the busiest roads near Madurai Junction, Visalam Coffee is a landmark in town. It is named after the wife of a past chairman of the erstwhile Pandyan Bank, SNK Sundaram Iyer. The coffee shop and Pandiyan House, which houses Canara Bank, now face each other on West Perumal Maistry Street.
Till recently, Visalam used to be one of the best adverts for the 92-year-old coffee company from Salem — Narasu’s — whose roasted ground coffee powder would go into preparing the Visalam cup of coffee. For years after the shop was started by S Krishnamurthy in 1955, a milkman from a nearby village would deliver fresh cow’s milk for the coffee.
“With somebody else’s name, somebody else’s coffee powder and milk, my father created magic and Visalam coffee became a household name,” beams K Sankaran, the oldest of four brothers, who learnt the art of making coffee from his father and has helped in the business since 1972. Now, he sits on a worn-out wooden desk placed in the right front corner of the same 10x15 square foot shop.
Inside the rectangular room, three pairs of hands work constantly — laying out the heavy aluminium trays with empty glasses, pouring the steaming coffee into them from a big steel vessel, and passing them to customers. There is a rhythm and order in that chaotic delivery that passes under Sankaran’s watchful eyes. He sells a minimum of 1,000 glasses everyday, at ₹15 each.
“Visalam coffee is like fast food for the people of Madurai,” says Rajendran, a retired Canara Bank employee. During the years he worked at the branch opposite the coffee shop, he says, he never missed having this coffee with his breakfast, during lunch time or with snacks. “There is a perfect balance of quality, taste, convenience and price,” he notes.
It is the brew ratio, blending plain coffee with chicory and the right proportion of milk, that makes Visalam coffee stand apart, vouches Rajamani, a retired insurance agent whose office was on the same street.
“The decoction is strong and the milk thick. It helps to retain a clear impression of the flavour,” says Sankaran, who comes daily at 4.30 am to prepare the first round of decoction. Early morning walkers, train passengers, corporation workers and security guards in the vicinity come for their share of the invigorating freshly-brewed cuppa. “As the shutters go up, there is a whiff of nostalgia and aroma,” shares Rajamani, also an old-timer.
Parking becomes a challenge as the day grows, but that does not keep the regulars away. Fresh decoction is prepared every hour and a “minimum of 100 litres of milk and three kilograms of coffee powder” are used every day. Sankaran adds they recently changed to a local brand of coffee powder and is humbled that people are still drawn to Visalam’s reputation.
He also finds it flattering that two of his old workers have branched out and set up their own shops under the name ‘The New Visalam Coffee’. “They gained experience here and chose to continue with Narasu’s powder,” points out Sankaran, “I decided to shift to another brand. The secret lies in making the right proportion and combination, blending coffee with chicory and brewing the perfect decoction.”
He retains the consistency in the quality and taste of coffee, which people identify with Visalam. The flavour is subjective, but the aroma and colour are what every coffee drinker notices. Visalam coffee has not disappointed so far, assure coffee lovers. It has a large loyal fan base in Madurai and is nowhere in sight of losing its place to anyone.
In this weekly column, we take a peek at some of the country’s most iconic restaurants