Standing on the side road of Marina Beach, when I offered a cuppa filter coffee at 10 bucks to passersby at one of our promotional events, little did they know the research and work that had gone into that brew. My intention was simple — introduce a specialty filter coffee to unprepared palates and gradually create a following based purely on merit of flavour and preference. The delightful part was when many coffee drinkers showed a healthy interest in the roast and the lack of chicory, and were mighty curious about our processes.
Going local
The principles of a good brew involve identifying the rightly processed bean, accompanied by a well crafted roast followed by a perfect extraction. In all the processes the common term is the coffee, it doesn’t matter what the brewing equipment or roasting equipment is. So, getting the right traceable beans which is fair trade to the farmer, incentivising them to produce and process better coffee which will also in turn elevate the filter coffee scene in the country. All of this needs the farmer to go away from their traditional methods, blend in a proportion that will not have the parchment peaberry ratio, cafés to operate in a different way and the consumer to understand the sensory experience this will provide. In fact, the Tamil Nadu plantations are on higher altitudes and that impacts the rate at which the coffee beans will ripen. The longer it takes to ripen, the more flavour compounds can be unlocked when combined with the right post harvest process and roasting. Also, the key factor that decides the taste finally is the blend you create. Recently, we introduced a popular blend from the Palani Hills that has quite a following now.
The know-how
It’s a journey that is tedious yet interesting because recreating something iconic gives me immense drive. It starts with understanding the attributes of what makes something so iconic, the simplest being TDS. Total Dissolved Solids. It’s the proportion of coffee extracted in a beverage. Reverse engineering that to suit vintage espresso equipment was one among the many interesting projects which started off the journey to give filter coffee its place in the world. I experimented with a La Pavoni 1970 brewed filter coffee in a pop up in the city couple of months ago w h i c h was visited by more than 1,000 people and everyone enjoyed my version of the Madras brew.
Global notes
It was heartening when a fellow enthusiast, Aeser, a Danish Q grader based in Thailand who travels around the world documenting and researching coffee recently visited Davrah — a project that I am supporting on getting South Indian filter coffee on the global map. Known in the coffee community as Aeser the Coffee Chronicler, he found me on Instagram and was blown away by the intensity of the brew and appreciated the idea of bringing in specialty coffee to an everyday apparatus in the country.
So, what is specialty coffee? Specialty cof fee is cer tified around the world by the scores given by sensory professionals or Q graders when the coffees pass a score of 80 on a scale of 100. The scores, though they mean better sensory experience, they are primarily made to pay the farmers and producers fair price. Though it seems easy, even now there are thousands of farmers who still get underpaid for the work they do throughout the year. When the wave of specialty coffees evolved globally amongst all the coffee consuming nations, I would have liked it if South Indian filter coffee evolved to a more standardised apparatus that would fit the manual brew bar in a chic café.
For an insightful sip of the coffee culture in our city, we invited self-taught coffee grader, Viggnesh to share his inputs on sourcing, sensory experience, roasting, quality control and brewing. As a coffee researcher, he has supported and worked with more than 10 brands across the country helping them perfect their brews, blends and offerings.