ESCAPE / INDIA

FRESHLY GROUND HEAVEN

A nation of tea drinkers, India loves its hot, sugary, milky chai. But while tea is the country’s most popular drink – especially in North India – it is coffee that reigns supreme in the coffee- growing states of the south. Here, it is more than a drink and something of a cultural icon

WORDS ISABEL PUTINJA PHOTOS VIVEK MUTHURAMALINGAM

An old-world coffee poster in the Indian Coffee House at their original location on Mahatma Gandhi Road, before its move to current location on Church Street

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n South India, early morning chain would appear almost every is a time for rituals. month. First it was Australia’s Prayers are recited and Gloria Jean’s, followed by Caffè religious idols decorated Pascucci from Italy, and before with flowers. Women draw long the UK’s Costa Coffee had delicate patterns called cafés scattered across the city. rangoli on their doorsteps Illy café opened a branch at the while brisk morning new airport and by the time I was walkers stride by. Making coffee leaving India, things had come full is another morning ritual. A circle with the inevitable arrival generous dose of ‘filter coffee’ of Starbucks. is decocted in a special stainless Young people especially steel filter, mixed with generous celebrate the arrival of these amounts of milk and sugar, and international coffee chains for served in a traditional metal their atmosphere, free Wifi, and cup set in a deep saucer. This is dizzying menus of espressos and repeated around 4 or 5pm and frappuccinos. At a Starbucks in savoured with the same reverence the upmarket neighbourhood of as the first early morning cup. Koramangala, Gaurav, an engineer This coffee ritual is so important from Delhi tells me why he’s a that a common afternoon regular here: “I’m a fan because of greeting in Bangalore is: “Coffee the décor and the quiet ambience aitha?” (Had your coffee?) allows you to take a break from the noisy streets outside and chill EVOLVING CULTURE with friends. I especially love their During the seven years I spent in Bangalore, I observed not only how much South Indians love their coffee, but also how new influences and trends were causing a slow transformation in the city’s coffee culture. While the older residents sipped from metal tumblers of filter coffee while standing at roadside eateries called darshinis, the younger, well-heeled crowd preferred to sit down to a ceramic cup of caffè macchiato in air- conditioned comfort at one of the numerous new trendy cafés. When I first arrived, my neighbourhood had a local branch Prepping the beverage and of India’s home-grown chain Café fuel for the day Coffee Day, but a new foreign

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Clockwise from top: Vandana Hotel on Cubbonpet Main Road has its share of regular coffee drinkers; view of the Bettadakhan coffee estate nestled in the hills of the Baba Budangiri; any time is a good time for a cuppa at this small coffee bar; different coffee varieties waiting to be graded and tasted

frappuccinos. Prices here are INDIA’S CAPITAL OF COFFEE The rolling hills of Karnataka’s quite heavy on the pocket with no Bangalore is the capital of Chikmagalur district, just 250km drink under 100 rupees, but I don’t Karnataka, India’s largest north-west of Bangalore, are mind spending this once a month.” coffee producer, but it is also believed to be the birthplace But even among the young, there the country’s de facto ‘coffee of Indian coffee. According to are fans of South Indian filter capital’. Home to the Coffee a local legend, it is in these hills coffee who prefer to stick to Board of India, this is where the that Baba Budan, a 16th-century their long-time neighbourhood country’s coffee decision-makers Sufi, planted the seven coffee favourites. “I go for my cup of are. The first regional chapter beans he brought from Yemen coffee at any darshini,” says of the Indian Coffee Workers’ on his way back from the Hajj. Shubha, a Bangalore native. “They Cooperative opened here in 1957, Today his shrine sits on top of have the best coffee because it’s managing the much-loved India one of the highest peaks, which authentic filter coffee, piping hot, Coffee House, a city landmark has been named after him: Baba and costs just 7 to 10 rupees. It’s whose old-world charm remained Budangiri. It was in the mid-18th the satisfaction of having a good unchanged for 52 years before century that the British first cup of coffee.” being forced to move to a new experimented with coffee- As stylish cafés proliferate location. This is also where the growing here, with the first across India, coffee’s place very first branch of Café Coffee plantation established in 1840 as a beloved drink has been Day opened on bustling Brigade near this legendary hill. Today reinforced. Consumption is Road in the city’s commercial 70 per cent of India’s coffee steadily rising, not only in the centre in 1996. Today the popular is grown in three regions of south, but increasingly in tea- Indian chain has 1,500 cafés Karnataka: Chikmagalur, Hassan loving North India where this new in 200 towns and cities across and Coorg, while the states foreign version of coffee culture the country, serving more than of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are has also caught on in a big way. 300,000 coffee lovers every day. India’s other traditional coffee- growing regions.

GROWN IN THE SHADE There are many aspects of South Indian coffee that make it exceptionally unique: from how it’s grown to the way it’s prepared (see page 27). This uniqueness starts at the roots of the coffee plant. “What is particular about coffee production in India is that it is one of the only places where it is sustainable,” explains conservationist Dr Arshiya Bose. “In other parts of the world, forests are cut down to plant coffee. What is unique in India is that coffee grows in the forest. One hundred per cent of coffee

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Clockwise from top: Sunalini Menon putting grades of coffee to the test at the Coffeelab; a display of coffee paraphernalia collected from across the globe during Menon’s travels; The Square is one of Cafe Coffee Day’s premium cafes in town; brewed for tasting

grown here is shade-grown.” I saw coffee quality is also dependent And our beans are perhaps not as proof of this on Ajoy Thipaiah’s on factors like origin, elevation, hard as the beans you get in other 110-hectare coffee estate bean size, soil quality and age. parts of the world, so we don’t in Chikmagalur, where native And like wine, a good coffee says need that much energy to roast hardwood trees and different something about its terroir, the it.” Another important component varieties of wild fig trees provide natural environment it was grown that gives South Indian coffee a natural canopy for the coffee in: its characteristic flavour is a its particularity is the addition of plants. The shade protects result of the soil and climate, but chicory. While coffee purists shun these plants from fluctuating can also be influenced by other the addition of the ground root of temperatures, and soil erosion is types of trees and plants growing this herbaceous plant to coffee, FILTERING THE prevented during the monsoon in the vicinity. “Coffee grown on those who are accustomed to its PERFECT BREW season, while the mulch provided a plantation with fruit trees like flavour can’t do without it. This To prepare a good cuppa, the by the trees conserves moisture orange and sapota (sapodilla) can is not surprising: chicory adds a traditional South Indian coffee and provides nutrients to the result in a sweeter, creamier cup,” pleasant caramel-like flavour to filter is indispensable. This soil. Of course, some sunlight is explains Bangalore-based coffee coffee and increases its potency. stainless steel contraption required for optimal growth. “We specialist and expert taster has two compartments, which cut one third of the shade cover Sunalini Menon. I watch as she DEMAND VERSUS YIELD sit on top of each other. The each year,” explains Thipaiah, “so sniffs, sips, slurps and spits her According to the London- coffee grinds are spooned that we have a 50-60 per cent way through a tasting, calling out based International Coffee inside the upper one which has ratio of shade and sunlight.” her impressions of the brew as Organization, world demand for a perforated bottom, and a her assistant swiftly takes notes. coffee is set to jump 25 per cent filter press, which looks like an A UNIQUE FLAVOUR “Very bright.” “Aromatic.” “Lots of in the next five years. The world inverted umbrella, is placed on South Indian coffee has a citrus fruit.” “A bit of floral notes.” is drinking more coffee, and so top. The upper compartment pleasantly mild taste, which is I ask what is particular about is India, where consumption has fits into the lower one, which not too acidic and is sweet on the taste of South Indian coffee. been steadily growing every year: collects the brewed coffee that the palate. Just as the quality of “If I take the S.795, for example, from 60,000 tonnes in 2000, slowly trickles through the tiny a good wine varies depending which is an Arabica variety that this figure doubled to 120,000 holes once hot water is poured on where, how and when the is produced in large quantities in 2014. At the same time, local inside the top container. Milk grapes are grown and processed, in India, it has lots of hints of coffee growers are experiencing mixed with sugar is heated chocolate, caramel and cacao,” decreasing yields. Most and once this is piping hot, it is Menon explains. These hints of plantations like the one I visited added to the coffee. The mixture flavours are part of the coffee’s are owned by small farmers who is poured into the metal tumbler unique taste, but taste is not have been in the coffee business and then poured from a height all about terroir. According to for generations. “We’ve been into the deep metal saucer, Menon, the degree of roast severely hit by climate change and back into the tumbler. is an important aspect in the for the past four to five years,” The coffee is poured back and development of flavour: “We don’t Thipaiah says. “Last year we forth with an elegant swooping take our coffee through a dark had a prolonged summer and a motion, aerating the liquid, and roast like in some parts of the delayed onset of the monsoon. creating small bubbles, which world,” she clarifies. “In Italy for These changing weather patterns lock in the aromas released instance, it’s a very dark roast; have had a very severe impact on when the coffee is sipped. they’re used to the espresso productivity and production has roast. We like the medium roast. now dropped. Socio-economic

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From top: Young women enjoying their coffee at the Starbucks outlet at Bangalore’s Phoenix Market City mall; the old-world interiors of the original Indian Coffee House

changes also affect production, especially the migration of local labour to cities. Our berries are handpicked and at harvest time I have a hard time finding enough workers.” With coffee consumption on the rise and diminishing crops, plantations may not be able to keep up with demand. Dr K. Basavaraj, Divisional Head and Quality Specialist at the Indian Coffee Board, reveals that imports and the expansion of production may be future solutions: “Though we currently produce enough coffee to cover the domestic market, in the future we may have to import coffee. We do already import some from Vietnam and Indonesia, which is used to make instant coffee and then exported. Also, cultivation seven years down the line and to Bangalore, I noticed a new has been expanding in non- we’ll have a drop in production. coffee trend as soon as I stepped traditional growing areas in the Two, pests and diseases will outside the airport. There are states of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh increase and plants will be lost. now half a dozen new, shiny Indian and the North-Eastern states.” We cannot grow coffee without coffee chains resembling the shade in India.” Dr Bose the fancy foreign cafés, but instead FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE conservationist however fears of ceramic cups of expensive Meanwhile, adopting the clear- for the trees, claiming that some lattes and machiattos, they serve cutting practices of other coffee- plantations have been tempted something you could never find at growing countries to create into intensifying their production a Starbucks or even Café Coffee full-sun plantations is clearly not and forest cover, and native tree Day: authentic home-grown filter the answer. Menon explains why species are being lost as a result. coffee. Served in the humble this is not the long-term solution: Increasing consumption patterns stainless steel cup. My return “If we chop down the trees, yields are clearly having an effect couldn’t have been sweeter. will be fabulously high. But we’ll on the local environment, eventually lose on two counts: raising questions about SilkAir flies four times one, by increasing productivity future sustainability. weekly between Singapore the soil will be depleted six or Still, when I recently returned and Bangalore

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