A not so brief history of coffee
The first is instant. Here goes…the coffee beans are grown. Carefully sorted, graded, roasted, blended and packaged immediately. After which, they are imported to a Barista Espresso Bar and freshly brewed for you. The end. As you can see, the instant option doesn't really provide much satisfaction. To really appreciate coffee, you need some amount of brewing time. Spare a few minutes to learn about the process in five easy steps. Or four hundred and eighty two words to be precise. Green - The wonderful colour of coffee. Selecting the bean: Sourcing the best green or unroasted coffee beans is the first step, and an important one, in the search for good coffee. Green beans come in two varieties - Lime and Lemon. Well, not really. It's actually Arabica and Robusta. At Barista Coffee, we use only high-grade Arabica beans, as they are superior and far more flavourful than Robusta beans.
The average elevation to produce these top grade Arabicas ranges from 3,500 to 7,000 feet. The cooler temperatures here allow the beans to mature gradually, intensifying their flavour in the process. We source the finest beans from around the world and also grow coffees on our estates in the regions of Coorg, Chickmagalur and Hassan. So what you get are only the best quality beans. While we get something to write about in this section. Hand picked by Indians. Blended by Italians. Creating a blend: Step two in the process, blending is not as easy as it seems. Blends are produced by combining several types of coffees. Their various properties and characteristics combine to give a balance of flavour and aroma to bring out the best in each other. Torrefattore, our Italian Roast Master is constantly inventing and innovating new blends for us. Blends are created and perfected by experts whose sense of smell and taste are highly developed. As every harvest has its own characteristics, our torrefattore can never rest on his laurels: blends must always be made from scratch.
The optimum temperature for coffee? Around 200°C. Roasting the bean: The act of broiling coffee beans is known as roasting. On an average, it lasts for almost 20 minutes at temperatures ranging from 180 to 200°C and helps release the bean's aromas. Our roast master clearly understands our standards for coffee tastes and defends them with a passion. Using high quality roasters and years of experience to achieve a perfect roast with every single batch. Sorry. Forgot to mention this was step three. For freshest beans, visit the coffee estates. Or your nearest Barista Espresso Packaging the beans: You guessed it - step four. Coffee tastes best when consumed within one month of roasting. After that, it gradually starts to lose its delicate aromas while its flavour oils begin to stale. Which is why, it is necessary to package beans to retain their freshness. We pack our beans on the very same day that they are obtained, in valve packs to seal in every bit of flavour. Our beans are pressurized to give good results. Brewing the bean: The final step. At Barista Coffee, we use the Espresso method. You see, espresso is not a coffee, but rather a method of making it. It's the delicate art of introducing just the right amount of pressure to the coffee brewing process. The pressure extracts every bit of flavour and also brings the aromatic oils to the surface. Which is why it is considered a superior method of making coffee. And one that our Brew Masters have mastered completely.
Coffee History The attempts to ban coffee. And other ridiculous moments in coffee history. As you sit back and enjoy your steaming cup of coffee, revel in your freedom. Historically coffee has been a drink that was considered to promote thought, and as such, also revolution and sin. Follow the journey of this bean from magical brew to common man's cuppa. Before someone comes along and bans this section. Sheep. The original providers of wool & coffee. Legend has it that it all began by a bloke called Kaldi. A wandering shepherd by profession, he noticed his sheep suddenly going hyperactive after eating the red cherries of a certain tree. (A coffee tree obviously, but he didn't know that yet.) Not wanting to be left out, he ate some too. Thanks to herd mentality, coffee was discovered. Everyone soon enjoyed the magical boost of this berry until the Christians came in and called it The Devil's Drink. What's Christmas without Santa, mistletoe and coffee beans? 1600 AD or so. Enter Pope Vincent III. Enjoys the drink so much he baptizes it. Making it an acceptable Christian beverage. Instantly, coffee wins the battle of good over evil and moves over from the dark side. Years later George Lucas makes a film based on this very theme. Moving along, the next few years sees coffee houses spring up in Venice, England and North America. By around 1668, coffee's so popular the Americans start having it for breakfast instead of their ever so nutritional bottle of morning beer. Women's Rights. Also women's wrongs. Then in 1674, the Women's Petition Against Coffee was set up in London. Women complained that men were never to be found at home during times of domestic crises, since they were always enjoying themselves in the coffee houses. Interestingly, things haven't changed till date.
Ladies and gentlemen…His Royal Flopness. A year later, King Charles II tried to suppress the coffee houses because they were regarded as hotbeds of revolution but his proclamation was revoked after a deafening public outcry and the ban lasted just 11 days. His hearing, however, lasted longer. Nothing inspires music much like the beauty of…er…a coffee bean. Let's skip to 1732. Nothing really happened in between except for coffee houses opening in Paris. Anyway, Johann Sebastian Bach composes his "Kafee-Kantate" or Coffee Cantata. Partly an ode to coffee and partly a stab at the movement in Germany to prevent women from drinking coffee. Sadly it doesn't get nominated for a Grammy or rank on Hitler's top 10 favourites. Coffee, tea or the death penalty ? Not too sure about when this happened, but let's just stick it in here. Disagreements arose as to whether coffee was an elixir or a poison.
To settle the controversy, identical Swedish twin brothers, sentenced to life imprisonment, were forced by the King to consume large quantities of either coffee or tea. When the twin forced to drink tea died first, aged 83, the question was answered and today Swedish people are amongst the world leaders in coffee consumption. Age 83. So young. So tragic. Chemist spends years to make instant coffee. Fast forward to 1901. The first soluble instant coffee is invented by Japanese American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago. No one is sure of what or who to refer to as the real blend. Americans lose sleep over coffee. In 1906, the first mass-produced instant coffee called Red E Coffee is launched. And advertising will never be the same again. Coffee sales boom. By 1940, the US imports 70% of the world's coffee crop. Americans finally are able to stay awake in the office. When it comes to coffee in the workplace, show them who's boss. Around the 80's in Italy, a man went to court to fight for an official Espresso break after being suspended for habitually disappearing every day between 10.00am to 10.15am. The court ruled that the Italian office worker's right to a coffee break is sacred. So the next time you skip for a break, have no fear, God's on your side. B for Bean. B for Barista. B for 'By golly! This article is almost over'. Finally in 2000, Barista Coffee opens its first Espresso Bar in New Delhi. Inducing no public outcries. No bans. No revolutions. Looks like coffee is here to stay after all. Coffee Cultivation We've added this section just for the sake of curiosity.
Not everyone would like to know the gory details of pulping a bean. Or if the beans are washed with mineral water or industrial strength detergent. But Barista Coffee caters to everyone. So read this if you are interested in growing your own coffee someday. Or are just plain bored and trying to look busy. Sowing the bean. Has nothing to do with needles and thread. As we all know, this consists of pouring seeds into the ground. When it comes to coffee, planting just any old seed will not do. Coffee growers must track down the most perfect coffee beans. Once located, they pulp, wash, and dry the beans before planting them in the ground. Imagine, all that cleaning up only to be stuck back into the mud. The beans are planted at 3.5-meter intervals and protected from the sun by the leaves of trees. The growing years: how to raise a beautiful, bonny bean. From the time the bean is sowed till about age three, the bean is pretty much left to its own devices. After that, the coffee tree is topped (crown is removed) so that it grows outwardly. This ritual continues every following year. At age five, the coffee tree begins its period of productivity. And will continue to bear fruit right into its teens. Caring for the Bean: In sickness and in health. Coffee growers constantly protect their bean babies from sickness and encroaching mushrooms. As times change, more and more coffee growers are allying with natural replacements to harmful chemical insecticides. And seem to have found their answer in everyday honeybees. Stripping the coffee. That ought to get you to read this bit. There are two methods of gathering: picking and stripping. Picking consists of handpicking only the ripe fruit. As this process requires pickers to repick the plant several times, it can take several months. On the other hand, speed is the only advantage of the stripping method. Now wipe that childish grin off your face. It's not like it sounds. Pickers slide their fists along a coffee branch to strip ripe, unripe, and overripe fruits - not to mention leaves and flowers on to a tarp. The result: lower-quality coffee.
The wet method. Dry method. And other weather forecasts for processing beans Extracting the bean from all that surrounds it: that's what processing is. Two very different methods can be used: the wet method, which yields washed coffees or the dry method, which yields natural coffees. The Wet Method: In this method, a machine separates the seed from the pulp using friction and a jet stream. This is known as pulping. After which, the beans are put into large concrete tanks filled with water to ferment for periods ranging from 12 hours to a couple days. The beans are then passed against a water current to rid them of any impurities. They are now ready for drying. During this stage, the coffee is covered by a parchment and kept in the sun for one to three weeks. After which, the bean turns golden yellow. Finally, friction is used to tear the hull from the bean, which gives the coffee its green olive colour. To rid a batch of any last impurities, coffee growers first sort the coffee using a sieve. The beans are then put through a screening device perforated with different-sized holes. The human eye will see to the final selection and determine the grade of each bean. Yaaaaawn! Before we get into the dry method, you might want to get yourself a cup of coffee.
The Dry Method: This is much faster than the wet method. After a quick wash, the cherries are immediately dried in the sun. The pulp and hull fuse together into a solitary shell, which is then removed by a process called shelling. Though the final result of coffee is not as superior as the wet method. Which is why at Barista, we only use the wet method to process our beans. For actually reading through this whole section, you deserve a bonus. So we're going to give you some nuggets on exporting and importing coffee beans. Just our way of thanking you. Depending on the country of origin, coffee can travel via many routes before arriving in your mug. Whether the coffee comes from a large plantation or from a small plot of land, affects the route that it will travel. Large coffee producers oversee the exportation of their beans. However, a small producer sells his beans to a cooperative that carries out transactions with the exporter. Often, the state itself is the only designated exporter.