As international coffee chains head to India, let’s not forget the humble filter kaapi, which started it all
The announcement about the arrival of Starbucks in India later this year has been greeted with a sense that the country of tea drinkers is finally set to wake up and smell the coffee. Nothing can be further from the truth. Of course, India consumes about 10 times more tea than coffee per capita and even Djibouti, Kiribati, Moldova and Lithuania drink more coffee per person than us.
India does not even figure in the top 100 coffee-drinking countries. But those nuggets of data only convey a part of the India coffee story. There is yet another statistic from the Coffee Board of India which puts this story in perspective: from the mid-1990s until 2010, India’s coffee consumption more than doubled to about 1,08,000 tonnes from 50,000 tonnes.
It would, however, be doing injustice to the wondrous brew to relegate its significance to mere numbers and ignore the romance behind it. Coffee came to India some 400 years ago and for large sections of the population south of the Vindhyas, filter kaapi is as much a religion as their rice, sambar and curd. Generations of moms have painstakingly brewed decoctions in steel filters every morning and evening and produced steel tumblers full of perfectly steaming hot and frothy servings of the bitter-sweet liquid, without which life would seem incomplete.
Restaurants and street-corner coffee shops added style to the cup by adding a slightly larger but shallow steel bowl to hold the tumbler and to mix and cool the brew before sipping it. Most of us loved the arrangement, especially when the coffee was slurped with a sound effect that would complete the sensory orchestra. One step higher in the pecking order was the restaurant that served coffee in white porcelain cups and saucers. This introduction of class did not ruin the experience. In fact, it could heighten it if the coffee was poured into the saucer and savoured slowly.
But this drink itself was mostly unidimensional. It’s called “filter” coffee as the liquid was brewed in a two-piece steel cylinder where the powder is put in the upper half and hot water poured onto it trickles through tiny holes and collects as coffee decoction in the lower half. The measures could increase or decrease depending on how potent the cup needed to be, with “strong coffee” being the popular keyword to a more bitter and acidic concoction, known for its powers to help defy sleep, to memorise tomes ahead of exams or fight the after-effects of a heavy meal.
That, however, was all the variation there could be, apart from the addition of chicory root powder to milder Arabica coffees to make it “stronger” at a lower cost. Brooke Bond was one major coffee powder brand, which had 70 per cent coffee and 30 per cent chicory. Dozens of regional coffee roasters played on the mix to cater to the taste buds of the more discerning consumers. And then came along Nescafe and Bru, soluble coffee powders, which could be mixed directly with water or milk, doing away with the filtering process. But they could never compare to the power of filter coffee and no self-respecting south Indian coffee home dared depend on them.
All that changed with the arrival of the modern coffee shop in the mid-1990s. The first of this avatar started off as a giant “cyber cafe” on two levels on Bangalore’s snazzy Brigade Road. Every half hour of browsing came with a complimentary latte, a big mug of milky coffee which connoisseurs eyed suspiciously. Contrast that with coffee shops offering free Wi-Fi internet and charging a bomb for a cuppa now and you realise the coffee-Internet story has come a full circle. Be that as it may, it is this outlet that spawned the successful Cafe Coffee Day or CCD chain which is today India’s largest, with more than 1,200 coffee shops.
CCD has been followed by Barista, Costa Coffee, Gloria Jean’s, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and several local chains, all of which specialise in a common range: the popular cappuccino (one part coffee, one part milk, one part milk foam), the latte (one part coffee and two parts milk), the espresso (one part coffee, consumed neat), the americano (one part coffee, two parts hot water) and the macchiato (espresso topped with just a spoon of milk foam). And then there are the cold coffees and ice coffees, which are just coffee-flavoured coolers. The cafes have also introduced us to toppings such as cinnamon, nutmeg or chocolate powder that can be sprinkled on cappuccinos or lattes to give them a sweet/spicy twist.
Much of the coffee in these outlets — barring the well-bodied espresso/macchiato crafted from the superior Peaberry — is uniformly unimpressive. A survey conducted four months ago by Harish Bijoor, a Bangalore-based independent consultant and former coffee professional, found 67 per cent of coffee sold at cafes in India were cappuccinos and lattes, or “dumbed down coffees” as he rightly calls them. Another 13 per cent were cold coffees and the remaining 20 per cent were espresso/macchiato/americano, or “real coffees”. But the cafes have been successful because they also offer other beverages such as teas, coolers and snacks, and more importantly have become a hip hangout for the young. Although the coffee is a bit incidental, it has gained because new consumers have been introduced to the beverage who have then pursued it at home and elsewhere.
The venerable Starbucks is set to join these worthies. Quite a few books have been written to explain the success of this Seattle-headquartered chain and while there may not be unanimity over the reasons, the rise of Starbucks coincided with the jump in coffee consumption in the US and the company rode that wave by rapidly expanding from coast to coast while maintaining the consistency of its coffees. I have been to less than half-a-dozen Starbucks outlets in different countries and have not found them any different from coffee shops at home. Friends in the US who have more Starbucks experience call their coffees “average”, “overpriced” or “over-roasted”, among others. Bijoor thinks the price point of Starbucks coffee in India will be a key factor in the chain’s success or otherwise. Price has been a critical element behind the success of CCD and the struggles of Barista, and in that sense, India has already woken up and smelt its coffee, even if it is the dumbed-down variety. Starbucks too can ride this wave if it can offer a bang for the buck.
Filter coffee
* Pick a mild, 100 per cent Arabica/Peaberry powder for a medium-body coffee or a 80-20/85-15 coffee-chicory blend for a darker, deeper flavour.
* Use 3-5 teaspoons (depending on strength desired) of the powder per cup and put the powder uniformly in the top half of the steel coffee filter after removing the plunger.
* Place the plunger atop the powder and pour 100 ml of freshly boiled water per cup onto it and close the filter lid.
* Allow the coffee to brew for 4-5 minutes and percolate into the lower half of the filter. If the powder is coarse, percolation may take longer.
* Pour the coffee decoction or liquor collected in the lower half into cups or mugs and add about 150 ml of freshly boiled milk from a reasonable height to produce a foaming cup.
* Add sugar to taste.
* Never reheat the decoction or heat the milk and coffee again after they have been mixed as the decoction tends to get bitter with reheating.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / IE> Story / by Y.P. Rajesh / Sunday, February 12th, 2012
