When coffee becomes a religion for some

For some people, mornings don’t begin too well without a sip of coffee. For others, office work seems like a nightmare without a giant cuppa. For yet another group, life seems incomplete without coffee and that’s exactly the kind we caught up with during the extended International Coffee Day celebrations. Three individuals, whose professions swirl inside a cup of this beverage, tell us why they chose a career in the F&B industry, hence justifying why coffee can’t be commemorated in just one day of the year!

Here’s a fact — coffee as a commodity is the second most widely traded in the world after crude oil. Thought I took to drinking coffee only a few years ago, as a family, we have been associated with it since 1959. We own coffee estates in South Coorg, where we grow pepper vines too, and I am personally very connected and committed to it. For me, this profession goes beyond coffee because agriculture itself is very satisfying. I think everyone should practice some agricultural/horticultural activity as it will root us better with the earth. As for my favourite variety of coffee, I prefer to have espresso without sugar. I like coffee ice cream very much too.

I associate the smell of coffee with me childhood because I remember it being a constant at our home — back then I would only get sugarless coffee. Over time, once I knew I wanted to be a chef, I had the desire to experiment with different flavours as opposed to just the bitter taste. A chance to do this incidentally landed in my lap and there has been no looking back ever since. I even got the opportunity to learn more about the beverage from one of Asia’s best and first woman coffee taster, Sunalini Menon. That helped me understand flavours, notes, varietals, roasting temperatures, etc. better. As a chef, I learnt to work with something called the flavour wheel so it helped me create unique brews like coffee with peppermint and rose. I also love to use coffee in a sauce or as a rub while making steaks or briskets. 

We’ve set up our stall across three states so far — Karnataka, Kerala and now Tamil Nadu, over a span of 25 years. In each region, we learnt how to brew tea according to the taste of the locals. However, when it comes to coffee, people aren’t as picky; they just drink what we give them and no one’s complained so far. So, I think we make the best coffee in South India! We first fill a quarter of a glass with decoction, then add boiling milk over it and finally, sugar. The real taste comes when my husband pours it back and forth between the glass and a vessel to create a foamy layer of froth. We can identify a real coffee fanatic by the way they drink — if they slowly slurp the coffee in and let out an ‘aaaah’ after every sip, they truly love ‘kaapi’. My husband and I still drink like this, every single day.