Getting hold of coffee brewing accessories has been a tad difficult for coffee lovers in India. If you're serious about your coffee, one of the best ways to brew is the pour over method. Read up on how to do it in my blog post within this blog. I've now introduced coffee drippers from Daiso Japan so that you have all the equipment requred to do a pur over at home. The drippers come with 50 sheets of unbleached paper filters. The bundle consisting of plastic dripper, filter paper, and a plastic coffee scoop is priced at Rs 300. That's a…

I spend much of my life in cafes. The coffee gets me in there but I stay for the atmosphere and experience. some of the things I like doing at cafes include reading, thinking, working, interviewing, people watching, and playing scrabble. There's something about cafes that make you comfortable being solo. These are some of the most interesting cafes I have visited.  Gallery Drip Coffee, Bangkok Located at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, this is the most unique cafe I've ever seen. That's Pi meticulously making his pour over coffee. He says he will never have an espresso machine in his cafe. Pi…

It's mid November and coffee picking has started at Boikere and also at most estates where Arabica is grown. Yes the harvest times of Arabica and Robusta are not quite the same. The important point however is that harvesting of coffee in India is done by hand. There's a huge difference between hand picking and machine harvesting. The craft of coffee growing covers many aspects where skill influences quality of the product as well as productivity of the estate. Fly picking for example refers to the first pass of picking where berries that ripen early are picked. Pickers typically will…

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee. It is reckoned that Ethiopian nomads may have been the forst to notice the stimulating effort off coffee, not by drinking it as a beverage but by eating the red coffee cherry. Islamic pilgrims are supposed to have spread coffee from here to the Middle East and from there to other parts of Asia including India. Coffee production in Ethiopia is about 200,000 tonnes per year. Compare that with India's The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is grown in the souther part of the country and can also be labelled as Sidamo which is the name of the…

If you are new to brewing roast and ground coffee you will find this section useful. There are many methods of brewing coffee, some of the popular ones being moka pot, French press, electric coffee maker, pour over coffee, the South Indian filter coffee maker, and the Vietnamese phin coffee filter. They all require some equipment so check the photographs below and see whether you have the right stuff to make your cup of coffee. A few general rules that will ensure you don't go wrong when making coffee.  1. Ensure the right coffee powder to water ratio. The rule of thumb…

You will need a French press, water, a stove or heat source to heat the water, coffee powder ground for a French press, plus milk and sugar which are optional. Your coffee should have been ground in a burr grinder to a medium to coarse level. If your coffee is from Estate Craft just specify the French Press grind when you are checking out. Take the plunger and lid off the press and add coffee powder to the main container. Use two tablespoons of coffee powder for a large mug or cup and one and a half tablespoons for smaller cup…

I'm going to go to town on this method of coffee brewing because it represents the true art of manual coffee making. Pour over coffee is apparently the simplest way to make coffee - place coffee in a filter paper cone, pour hot water through the coffee and into a cup below and your coffee is ready. True but god is in the details and the coffee god insists on the combination of ritual and process. So read on. Equipment: You will need a pour over kettle. Hario is a Japanese company that makes the most famous pour over kettle. It…

You will need a moka pot, coffee powder, water, and a stove. Plus as always milk and sugar is optional. The moka pot is a classic of Italian design made famous by a company called Bialetti. It's typically made of aluminum with a dull silver finish. There are variations in stainless steel as well. Moka pots come in different sizes but be warned that when the Italians say 3 cup size they are referring to demitasse cups . So a 3 cup Bialetti moka pot makes one normal cup of coffee. Dismantle the moka pot - it consists of the base,…

Recently I had a debate with a coffee planter friend of mine who is a recent convert to coffee drinking. I should throw in a plug for Estate Craft because he started drinking coffee after trying out one of our single estate coffees. So the debate was about coffee making methods and which was better between the moka pot from Bialetti and the pour over. Like many coffee drinkers he likes his coffee strong and hot and his assumption was that moka pot coffee would be hotter and stronger than pour over because it is brewed on a life fire…