Indian Coffee
It's always fun for me when a bunch of coincidental things happen at once. Earlier last week, I was e-mailing back and forth with Shreerag Plakazhi of India. I had misunderstood that he was asking me if I'd ever tried coffees from India. There is coffee production out of India, most of it from small growers, and responsible for about 5% of the world's coffee production. Shreerag was actually referring to a unique coffee brewing method called Indian filter coffee or South Indian coffee.[ad#Google Adsense - use me]
True Indian filter coffee is made with a unique two-cup metal contraption, and I don't have one. It's also made with a combination of dark-roasted coffee and chicory. A week later, I received an email from a visitor to the site named Makeda Queen, asking me if I had any advice on adding chicory to coffee. Last but not least, this week, a new book entitled "The Romance of Indian Coffee" was released, and I knew the stars must be aligned for me to experiment with something new.
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Here's the best that I figured I could make my own Indian filter coffee at home:- It's made with roughly a 80% / 20% mix of dark-roasted coffee and chicory.- I don't have any dark-roasted coffee at home, but I did just receive my home roasting equipment. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've been having lots of fun home roasting again. I took the last of my unroasted Nicaragua Maragogype beans that I bought from Toronto's Green Beanery and roasted them as dark as I could without burning them, or setting off the fire alarms.- On my last trip to the grocery store, I bought some chicory from the baking aisle. I'm not the culinary type, so I confess I don't quite know what exactly chicory is.- I've decided the method I will use to brew in absence of the true equipment is by Chemex pourover.
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The magic all happens tomorrow. I don't know what to expect, but the only way to truly appreciate the wide world of coffee is to try as much of it as you can. You don't need to roast your own beans and buy chicory from the grocery store, but if you love coffee, experiment with it. Try one you've never tried before. And when you visit your local roaster, take the time (and theirs) to learn what they have to offer that you would enjoy and haven't tried.