Aren't we all a wee bit crazy about our morning coffee? Insanely idiosyncratic about its precise preparation - the level of sugar, black or with milk, single, double, triple the list goes on. How many of us who might never enter the kitchen on good days, can't risk someone else screw around with our morning brew? Me for one. I can maybe have a few shitty cups of tea but a badly made cup of coffee, man that's doom.
What explains this uncompromising discernment about the morning cup? Well, the power it has on our day ahead. Honestly, it could make or break it. Coffee wakes us up on the inside. It makes the difference between going through our day languidly or waking up and owning it. Bad coffee can leads to a bad day? Ofcourse. Good coffee can make an average day great? Very much so.
You don't need to spend more than a couple of days in Europe to realise how shitty the coffee in India is. And that very moment is your initiation of becoming a coffee snob. There are coffee snobs of varying degrees united by their common intolerance for drinking mild sugary concoctions in the name of coffee.
So how do we make coffee, our ultimate little luxury a wee bit better?
Step 1, get a pot. It is the most worthwhile investment you'll ever make. I use an Italian Bialetti double serve moka pot. I've been carrying it around for 2 years now, not yet to hotels, which I hear is the ultimate coffee snobbery. After that you just need to invest in good roasts and your coffee is taken care of. My Americans friends prefer their French press, a different kind of snobbery involving, hold-your-breath, the temperature of the water during the brew. A different kind of a coffee elite prefers a drip, the one that involves a chemistry lab expermientesque funnel. Whatever the pot, rest assured, using and maintaining it isn't easy. Making coffee in them involves a procedure, a careful calibration of components, the right ground, the correct temperature and the correct usage of the machine itself. Significant effort to get that elusive, right-tasting cuppa. But whoever uses a pot, knows what instant cannot make. You can pick all three types on but ofcourse, Amazon.
But, if you are lazy and couldn't care less about anything besides the perfect cup, get a friend to bring you a Nespresso machine from Singapore. Nestle's foray into coffee luxe, Nespresso has managed to make a good cup of coffee, an 'instant' phenomenon. Nespresso = swanky coffee machines and colorful capsules carrying different blends of varying strengths. Nespresso is like the Apple of coffee, and has created a tribe of people who indulge and revel in its coffee-culture the world over united by their unparalleled laziness to care about making their own coffee. I own one too, for my lazy days. However I must mention buying imported Nespresso capsules in India is coffee snobbery personified as it works out to be more expensive than drinking coffee at Starbucks. Hence, never serve it to guests. ;)
Step 2, know a little bit about the beans. Basically there's Arabica and then there's Arabica. You will come across it 97% of the times. Harvested originally in Africa, primarily Ethopia, you can find varying degrees of richness and acidity in Arabica beans from Kenya to Indonesia. Arabica beans are easy to blend, and that's what you find in mass-produced coffee. Which is why coffee snobs prefer single estate, or coffee beans cultivated from a single farm only. Less quantity, more luxury, as always. I recently tried some single estate coffee from Blue Tokai coffee roasters, who work with South Indian coffee farmers, and have ditched Starbucks blends since. Try their dark Vienna roast, winning stuff. And they custom-grind your beans to your pot type.
Step 3, while ordering coffee at a coffee shop, customise a little. Check on the type of bean and order a single origin wherever possible, order at the minimum a medium strength (low will put you back to sleep), ration the milk and far as possible try to minimize the sugar. Unless you are having a double whipped cream mocha frappucino, in which case, sugar doesn't matter. While in India, Barista offers nice Lavazza versions and Cafe Coffee Day does a fairly good frappé. Amongst the cafés, Elma's and l'Opera have uniformly good coffee.
Step 4, do not underestimate the magic of a well-beaten homemade instant cup of Nescafe. We all grew up on it, winter is incomplete without snuggling with family over cups of these and froth never tasted better.
Step 5, perfect the articulation of how you like your coffee. You must be able to confidently rattle out a complicated sounding calibration of ingredients and tolerate no dissonance on it. The faster you speak and the lesser eye contact you make, the busier and less tolerant you seem. That's the trick.
But whether you gulp in your single shot of espresso at the coffee bar or lounge lazily on a couch all day with a friend over café allongé, those moments are special, bound by our limitless love of caffeine in a bean.
Now can I have a double espresso Macchiato please?
Expert Tip : Dark chocolate dipped in espresso is the ultimate diva breakfast.
Expert Video : Watch this Nowness.com video about our universal love for coffee and the art of making it.
What explains this uncompromising discernment about the morning cup? Well, the power it has on our day ahead. Honestly, it could make or break it. Coffee wakes us up on the inside. It makes the difference between going through our day languidly or waking up and owning it. Bad coffee can leads to a bad day? Ofcourse. Good coffee can make an average day great? Very much so.
You don't need to spend more than a couple of days in Europe to realise how shitty the coffee in India is. And that very moment is your initiation of becoming a coffee snob. There are coffee snobs of varying degrees united by their common intolerance for drinking mild sugary concoctions in the name of coffee.
So how do we make coffee, our ultimate little luxury a wee bit better?
Step 1, get a pot. It is the most worthwhile investment you'll ever make. I use an Italian Bialetti double serve moka pot. I've been carrying it around for 2 years now, not yet to hotels, which I hear is the ultimate coffee snobbery. After that you just need to invest in good roasts and your coffee is taken care of. My Americans friends prefer their French press, a different kind of snobbery involving, hold-your-breath, the temperature of the water during the brew. A different kind of a coffee elite prefers a drip, the one that involves a chemistry lab expermientesque funnel. Whatever the pot, rest assured, using and maintaining it isn't easy. Making coffee in them involves a procedure, a careful calibration of components, the right ground, the correct temperature and the correct usage of the machine itself. Significant effort to get that elusive, right-tasting cuppa. But whoever uses a pot, knows what instant cannot make. You can pick all three types on but ofcourse, Amazon.
 |
| Moka pot |
 |
| French press |
 |
| Drip coffee |
But, if you are lazy and couldn't care less about anything besides the perfect cup, get a friend to bring you a Nespresso machine from Singapore. Nestle's foray into coffee luxe, Nespresso has managed to make a good cup of coffee, an 'instant' phenomenon. Nespresso = swanky coffee machines and colorful capsules carrying different blends of varying strengths. Nespresso is like the Apple of coffee, and has created a tribe of people who indulge and revel in its coffee-culture the world over united by their unparalleled laziness to care about making their own coffee. I own one too, for my lazy days. However I must mention buying imported Nespresso capsules in India is coffee snobbery personified as it works out to be more expensive than drinking coffee at Starbucks. Hence, never serve it to guests. ;)
 |
| Nespresso |
Step 3, while ordering coffee at a coffee shop, customise a little. Check on the type of bean and order a single origin wherever possible, order at the minimum a medium strength (low will put you back to sleep), ration the milk and far as possible try to minimize the sugar. Unless you are having a double whipped cream mocha frappucino, in which case, sugar doesn't matter. While in India, Barista offers nice Lavazza versions and Cafe Coffee Day does a fairly good frappé. Amongst the cafés, Elma's and l'Opera have uniformly good coffee.
Step 4, do not underestimate the magic of a well-beaten homemade instant cup of Nescafe. We all grew up on it, winter is incomplete without snuggling with family over cups of these and froth never tasted better.
Step 5, perfect the articulation of how you like your coffee. You must be able to confidently rattle out a complicated sounding calibration of ingredients and tolerate no dissonance on it. The faster you speak and the lesser eye contact you make, the busier and less tolerant you seem. That's the trick.
But whether you gulp in your single shot of espresso at the coffee bar or lounge lazily on a couch all day with a friend over café allongé, those moments are special, bound by our limitless love of caffeine in a bean.
Now can I have a double espresso Macchiato please?
 |
| A perfect Macchiato at the hole in the wall Cafe San Jose in Paris. November'12 |
Expert Tip : Dark chocolate dipped in espresso is the ultimate diva breakfast.
Expert Video : Watch this Nowness.com video about our universal love for coffee and the art of making it.
