I shall now delve into the mysteries of making the perfect cup of coffee. You'd imagine if you're paying 40 bucks for a cup of coffee at Barista u'd get somethign good. Unfortunatly the mix-masters at these places are just doing their job, which happens to be, pouring coffee for customers. They are NOT coffee lovers, they're robots trying to pull the perfect shot of espresso...

There were 2 baristas which made excellent coffees, one is in Shivaji Park, Mumbai and the second was on CG Road in Ahmedabad, unfortunatly the Ahmedabad one got demolished for some reason.

The image on the right is all that remains of the joint. Dont know about the shivaji park one, probably its still there. I just went there ONCE....


And for all the machines that they have, u'd think there'll be SOME consistency among the different branches of Baristas all over India. Unfortunatly, there isnt, except that most suck. My suggestion: Fire the staff, invest in an army of automatic coffee machines.


Now these bad boys (on the left) can make an excellent cup of coffee, and there's no shame in using an automatic. The benefit is it makes the perfect cup everytime. There's no room for human error, (unless you manage to fuck up the beans) and is ideal for a joint like Barista. Where HUMAN INTERVENTION does not add to the product, it just fucks it up.

This baby grinds the beans, tamps them, shoots out espresso, then foamed milk/hot chocalate for cappucino/mocha repectivly. Operator has to make sure the beans and water is loaded. That's it. Not like barista where they keep this Grinder in your face just to show how serious they are about coffee (SEE WE HAVE BEANS!). Then they get the grounds and tamp it non seriously. Then just plug it in the machine and out comes half-ass espresso, which they further ruin by adding badly foamed milk etc. Sometimes, u get MALAI in the cappucino !! THE HORROR !!!

Anyway, enough of Barista rants. Here's how to make a great cup of coffee at home, for cheap, using indeginously procured raw material.

Recipe for making South Indian coffee in North India
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If you're a coffee lover and have the misfortune of living in North India.. well, join the club. It's awfull up here. Anyway, eversince the Honorable Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, aka, Cafe Coffee Day started enchroching upon barista's territory, the struggle has been easier.

Not that I'm promoting CCD over Barista, both suck, what with their trashy stale food and overtly loud yuppy customers and snobbish waiters (Sir, do u know americano is a black coffee?). The reason is coffee day has better ground beans for sale than the barista pack. Also, CCD Arabica pack costs half of the barista trash.

Anyway.. onto the recipe.

Ok... first u need coffee powder and a filter. Two options there, the Arabica pack is for 50 bucks (100g) and another option is Dark Forest for 100 bucks. Dark forest is a good blend, good aroma, finely ground powder, makes for a good wake up drink in the morning. But lacks the strength of the plain old Arabica. Experiment and decide.

Note: CCD sells two other blends called Charge and somethign-else. Both suck, they're Coffee and Chickory blends. Ignore them. Buy the 100% arabica thingy.

You also need this ingenious south indian filter coffee device thing. Its a two part container with the top one having holes in the bottom. You put ground coffee, then comes the tricky part. You have to tamp the grounds. What it means is compress the grounds with a seive press that comes along with the filter. This step cannot be overemphasised. It can ruin a perfectly good shot. There's no specific instructions, only experience and a rabid dedication towards perfection will tell. Heres what the experts have to say:

This is a small art-form in itself, with espresso fanatics going to great lengths to achieve the perfect puck, and prevent the pitfall of uneven extraction that occurs with uneven compression of the coffee. It is not unusual for the tamping process to involve several steps, including compression with different tamps, at different pressures. A small set of scales is useful to quantify the pressure used for each tamp. Increasing the tamping pressure will increase the brew time of a shot of espresso, and thus increase the extraction from the coffee, resulting in a stronger shot.

Dont be so rabid that u buy a bunch of scales to mesure the pressure. Just do this: Put the beans, then press lightly (almost tap) the sieve on the beans once, then rotate the sieve and tap again, rotate and tap. Repeat till u do ONE whole circle, this will make sure the coffee is spread evenly. A very important point to note at this stage is that the filter should be straight, dont hold it in a slanting position. The grounds would be tilted to one side, whcih means sucky espresso.

Once u;re done with the tapping, press it firmly. U should feel the grounds compressing. Do it too much and it'll take hours for the water to seep through, do it too little, and u'll get weak ass espresso. Experiment. We'll discuss ways to check for strength later.

Now quantities. For one cup of coffee, the ideal amount of beans would be 3 heaped teaspoons. If you're making a mug, then go for 4. If you want to bring a corpse back to life, use 5. Four is ideal, trust me.

Now water. Water and coffee ratio is another thing which can fuck up a good espresso. From now on we'll talk in cups (not mugs, and I dont know the volume in mililiters or !GASP! ounces).

Remember, what we're making right now is espresso, or decoction if u please. We'll dilute it with water later on. So, for now heat 1/2 cup water in the microwave for 1 min on high. It shouldnt boil, use whatever time, but half cup of water should be heated, but not boiled. No bubbles. Use clean water.. not mineral water, not tap water. Clean filtered water. Aquaguard is great.

Back to the "now-tamped" filter. Place the sieve on the coffee and leave it there. Now place one finger on the sieve and pour the 1/2 cup hot water over the grounds. The reason for folding the sieve is that sometimes it starts floating. Which is wrong.

Self Check: If you tamped the coffee properly the water will remain slightly clear. There will be a few undisolved beans floating, and it gets discolored, but the whole thing is still clear. Thats a sign u got the tamping right. It could also mean u tamped it too hard and the grounds are as hard as concrete.

Now put the cover on, and leave it. Make sure the top part of the filter is straight. Just out of curiosity, lift the top part and see if coffee is dripping, this may take some time. In the meantime do somethign constructive, fetch the coffee mate and sugar.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at 6:38 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.