Aavin Flavoured Milk
One of the really unique things about Chennai is Aavin, the milk cooperative that set the trend for milk cooperatives elsewhere in the state. The concept of an automatic vending machine, to which I was introduced long back, was really fascinating. One would pay the required amount, get the tokens and drop them one at a time into a slot and voila, milk would suddenly flow from the dispensing plastic tap into the container, as if by magic. I am sure, many who had relocated to Chennai from smaller cities would have been amused by this new way of getting something compared to where they must have come from, having lived close to the source and thus witnessing the actual process on a daily basis. Anyway, apart from the milk itself, the other things that were good about Aavin were the various milk products they carried like the Milk Khoa, Chocobar and most importantly, Flavoured Milk, my favorite being the Yelakkaai (Elaichi) one. This milk that was vanilla in color and came in a bottle (long before tetrapacks became popular) was my must-have at the Luz corner Aavin outlet (entrance to Kutchery Road). And do you know what it costed in those days? The princely sum of 1 rupee and 90 paise :-).
Yeah fond memories of good old aavin. Put the 25 paisa coin into the machine and it would dispense a quarter litre of milk into the pail you place below the spout.
But then after milk started getting more expensive, they had this guy who would collect the 7-8 rupees and then turn on the milk operate the machine from a control room inside the outlet.
I doubt those dispensers work anymore.. and with the advent of advanced retail, the importance of Aavin in our everyday lives.. has sort of gotten diluted.
Also remember that My siblings and i would always argue if nilgiris coloured milk was better than aavin, but certainly we all agreed that aavin served better tasting milk than nandini in blore..
Never operated the machine, but I do remember some adults pulling my leg, when I was a kid, by saying that there was a real cow inside the machine!
Yes, I was fascinated too. I woke up early to accompany my dad to the “paal booth”, when I was very young. I guess, I was more enamored by the punching of the milk card than the tokens or the automatic milk. When I was 4 or 5 yrs old, I punched the card for the whole month one afternoon with my pencil, the next day my dad had to explain to the paal-booth kaarar and get tokens for the whole month!
and oh, I loved the soyamilk they sold!
Yes, and it used to be one hell of a rush in the vending booths during summer and one was entitled to only 2 tokens (one litre) then. Also, the chocobar icecream in Aavin in the best in my opinion. The chocolate coating especially is thick and very good in taste too. There are other goodies too which is less known like Aavin gulab jamoons, chocolate/milk pedas, lassi.
Yeah…it sure did bring me back memories of “cone ice-cream” as well from the Luz corner Aavin. I also remember visiting Universal bakery opposite to Aavin…they sold good tea cakes…
While it feels good to reminisce about Aavin, I’m still disappointed that I was tricked into this discussion with a title that promised to talk about flavoured milk…
Aavin does not process soya milk.
Raghavan, Maybe they don’t now but I was talking about early-mid 80s..Anyways, I was really young so I may have gotten the flavor wrong but I will always remember that taste as soyamilk’s!