Sharing these views telephonically with LifeInChandigarh.com in the run-up to a first of its kind coffee tasting and learning session for coffee lovers in the tricity on October 23, Vikram Khurana, India’s only barista (Italian word for coffee brew master) ever to win top ranking (3rd and 5th positions) at two consecutive Annual World Barista Championships in 2002 and 2003, says, “As affluence increases in a society, so does automatically its coffee culture, like it happened in several East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.”
Picture of concentration: Barista champ Vikram Khurana
Vikram Khurana and Spanish-origin coffee entrepreneur, roaster and brewer with 29 years of international experience in the speciality coffee movement, Marc Tormo Altimira, settled in Auroville, Puducherry since 1996, will during a 90-minute session at Back To Source, cafe well-being in Sector 17, demonstrate before a select gathering of invited coffee lovers from the tricity how to brew best coffees at home and how best to savour them. Both are among the best known names in the world of coffee in India.
Back To Source, which is already wowing coffee lovers by serving high quality freshly roasted speciality coffees – a variety of combinations of Marc’s Coffees’ signature coffees Buma Devi, Kaveri and Neri Malai, will be launching two new coffee flavours on the occasion. One of the new coffee flavours is from Odisha’s Koraput tribe in collaboration with Project O, and the other a nano lot produced by Pranoy from Kerehaklu Estate, Chickmangalur, Karnataka.
During the session, the invited coffee lovers will be explained how hand grinders, precision scales, pour over filters and kettles are helping create a new culture of home brewing. Incidentally, Khurana is also CEO of Kaapi Solutions, a company which besides offering end-to-end consultancy to cafe entrepreneurs, also sells world class home, office and cafe grade coffee machines and other equipments.
Comparing more affluent societies to India, Khurana adds, “No doubt there is a large and fast growing class of people in India who are addicted to coffee, and understand good coffee, but we lack consumption volumes. In Australia, for example, people start having their morning coffee as early as 7 am, but in India the earliest coffee session starts sometime late in the afternoon.”
“Also, consumption of black coffee, which brings out the very essence of good high quality coffee, is very low. By a rough estimate, as compared to espressos and milk coffees, it would be 7-8% in hotels and restaurants, and probably 20% in cafes serving speciality coffees,” he emphasises.
Commenting on Indian coffees, since India is the 5th largest coffee exporting country in the world, he says “we cannot really claim that we grow and roast the best coffees in the world, but India’s coffees have their own unique flavour. We have realised our potential rather late, and are slowly getting there. A new generation of growers and roasters have started to experiment with the Indian coffees and are presenting good results.”
Sharing his own experiences as a champion barista, Khurana feels that more than formal education, brewing is about passion, knowledge and experience. He had joined Coffee Day as a barista only a year before India was first invited to the Annual World Barista Championship, its 3rd edition at Oslo in 2002.
“It was an honour for me to represent Coffee Day at the event. I was nervous as well as excited. After months of practice, there I was at Oslo holding India’s pride in my hands. My 3rd position finish among six finalists was dream come true. A 5th position finish in the next edition of the championship at Boston in 2003 proved that the 2002 performance was not a fluke,” he recounts.
The good part, he asserts, was that India firmly stamped its presence on the world coffee map and India’s perception of being a mere coffee growing country changed forever.
LifeInChandigarh.com by APR Media House is an enjoyable digital reading startup, which keeps you abreast of the latest meaningful happenings of interest to large sections of folks in Chandigarh tricity, and expats from the region. It has been promoted by a public spirited senior journalist and media consultant with a view to encourage good quality and healthy journalism, a dire need of the times.
To keep in touch, drop an email or call :
kochhar.apr@gmail.com
9815617676
