tHE JOURNEY...
It is said coffee culture is growing in India these days.
Is it true? Not really!!
Let’s flip the pages of history once. I know coffee history is redundant let me make it specific to India.
Coffee was known from approximately the 9th century and was documented in the 18th century odd.
Coffee was there in India since the 1670s odd when Babu Budan bought beans tucked around his belly to Chikmaglur/Coorg. In fact this was the first in world history when coffee beans were smuggled from middle east and sheerly because of this smuggling that the Europes, Americas and Indonesias of the world got coffee beans. So kudos to that!!
qahawat-al-bun = wine of the bean
As the laziness among ancestors of the current generation grew this word got trimmed to qahawat became qahwa which became koffiee which finally became coffee.
A long journey from a meaningful word to a word which goes attributed the meaning.
Since Coorg was the first place where India grew coffee south Indians were one of the first drinkers, similarly tea is grown widely in Darjeeling so northies are tea fanatics.
Chicory is a fragrant root of a plant which has stimulating effects too on a milder note.
Southies had their traditional filter coffee which had a mix of chicory and coffee as a ritual in the morning.
Coastal weather + Beach + Early morn Sun + smell of freshly brewed filter coffee was near mandatory for them.
Strong decoctions were brewed; apparently coffee brewed by the south Indian way has a higher dose of caffeine than an espresso shot
We Indians were never great with machinery. We stuck to the traditional way of making coffee. In the meanwhile Italians started making machines which could force hot water through coffee grounds to make coffee faster as drip coffee took longer. Thus emerged the espresso machines somewhere around 1880’s
Everyone knew how to make coffee so why is espresso a landmark at all. A few points here
· Drip method took time to brew and slowly time was becoming less for the mankind.
· It gave them convenience
· Industrial revolution ignited general interest in anything machine :P and most importantly
· Espresso gave people the freedom to do many things with coffee
With coffee in a concentrated 30ml shot and not in the usual watery form many other ingredients could be added to make up a different, thicker, creamier etc. beverage.
Till about coffee was a private affair in South India where everyone had their own ritualistic home blend, personal roaster and grinder and a home grown procedure of making it. It was not a serious affair in north India where Nescafe was the only form of coffee majority knew and were blissfully ignorant of the bean, roasting and grinding.
The first coffee house in India came up in Calcutta in 1780 , of course to serve the British. Another came up in madras. Slowly as the British spread to hill stations and to rest of India coffee went along with them.
In 1996 the first Cafe coffee day started off in Bangalore. It catered to the youth as a place to hang out and not really as a coffee connoisseur palace.
As Pavlov’s Dog theory says - ring the bell + give food would soon make bell = food. Place for hanging out + coffee slowly became equivalent. So not really a coffee culture growing but a culture growing with coffee fuelling it.
CCD sparked off the trend and Barista, Costa and recently Starbucks followed suit.
That is a brief of how and what happened to coffee in India.
PS- Missed anything in particular or would want to know more please drop in a query :D
Is it true? Not really!!
Let’s flip the pages of history once. I know coffee history is redundant let me make it specific to India.
Coffee was known from approximately the 9th century and was documented in the 18th century odd.
Coffee was there in India since the 1670s odd when Babu Budan bought beans tucked around his belly to Chikmaglur/Coorg. In fact this was the first in world history when coffee beans were smuggled from middle east and sheerly because of this smuggling that the Europes, Americas and Indonesias of the world got coffee beans. So kudos to that!!
qahawat-al-bun = wine of the bean
As the laziness among ancestors of the current generation grew this word got trimmed to qahawat became qahwa which became koffiee which finally became coffee.
A long journey from a meaningful word to a word which goes attributed the meaning.
Since Coorg was the first place where India grew coffee south Indians were one of the first drinkers, similarly tea is grown widely in Darjeeling so northies are tea fanatics.
Chicory is a fragrant root of a plant which has stimulating effects too on a milder note.
Southies had their traditional filter coffee which had a mix of chicory and coffee as a ritual in the morning.
Coastal weather + Beach + Early morn Sun + smell of freshly brewed filter coffee was near mandatory for them.
Strong decoctions were brewed; apparently coffee brewed by the south Indian way has a higher dose of caffeine than an espresso shot
We Indians were never great with machinery. We stuck to the traditional way of making coffee. In the meanwhile Italians started making machines which could force hot water through coffee grounds to make coffee faster as drip coffee took longer. Thus emerged the espresso machines somewhere around 1880’s
Everyone knew how to make coffee so why is espresso a landmark at all. A few points here
· Drip method took time to brew and slowly time was becoming less for the mankind.
· It gave them convenience
· Industrial revolution ignited general interest in anything machine :P and most importantly
· Espresso gave people the freedom to do many things with coffee
With coffee in a concentrated 30ml shot and not in the usual watery form many other ingredients could be added to make up a different, thicker, creamier etc. beverage.
Till about coffee was a private affair in South India where everyone had their own ritualistic home blend, personal roaster and grinder and a home grown procedure of making it. It was not a serious affair in north India where Nescafe was the only form of coffee majority knew and were blissfully ignorant of the bean, roasting and grinding.
The first coffee house in India came up in Calcutta in 1780 , of course to serve the British. Another came up in madras. Slowly as the British spread to hill stations and to rest of India coffee went along with them.
In 1996 the first Cafe coffee day started off in Bangalore. It catered to the youth as a place to hang out and not really as a coffee connoisseur palace.
As Pavlov’s Dog theory says - ring the bell + give food would soon make bell = food. Place for hanging out + coffee slowly became equivalent. So not really a coffee culture growing but a culture growing with coffee fuelling it.
CCD sparked off the trend and Barista, Costa and recently Starbucks followed suit.
That is a brief of how and what happened to coffee in India.
PS- Missed anything in particular or would want to know more please drop in a query :D