Shack Coffee Co.

Are You a Coffee Lover?
If you live in India and you happen to love coffee there has never been a better time to be a coffee lover. There are options galore from the instant coffee to vending machines to desi filter kapi to specialty cafes to world renowned coffee chains to various options of home brewing. With this wide array of choices one will only be confused. 

What! Starbucks is coming to India and Dunkin Donuts too.
And with the announcement of Starbucks Coffee coming to India the wait is over. Now one does not have to go the US of A and Europe to sip a cup of coffee and proudly share the moment with your loved ones. All you would need to do now is to walk to the nearest private airport, swanky malls and barricaded offices to taste the prized cup. 

History of Coffee In India
However simple it may sound, but this news makes us think about the journey Indian Speciality Coffee has taken from the ancient days of seven coffee beans being smuggled into India to British owned plantations to becoming as one of the largest exporters of coffee to the new wave of coffee culture started by Cafe Coffee Day and Barista to its current scene. 

Cafes in India
All in all India does not have more than 3000 specialty cafes which offer you the comforts of a lounge and convenience of not spending a bomb to be there. As compared to the markets with one fourth the population and twenty five thousand cafes the numbers are minuscule. but with the ever increasing disposable incomes and growing economy one can see the potential which these big companies must have gauged.

Liberalization Gave us Cafes
Liberalization happened nearly twenty years ago and what we see as new India is attributed to liberalization. it gave us IT services monsters, it gave us call center supremacy and readers for Chetan Bhagat, it gave us brands to consume, it gave us a whole new sub culture and a lot more. One of the most visible symbols of liberalization has to be Cafes. 

First Specialty Cafe
The first specialty cafe was established in 1996 in Bangalore and from there coffee cafes went on to define social venues. For the most of the generation X and Y cafes are by default the place to meet friends, acquaintances and socialize over a cup of coffee and some eatables. Words like lattes, cappuccino, americano, shot, panini and frappe have become part of the urban Indian dictionary. Activities like book reading, poetry recitals, meet ups, workshops and music sessions started happening in cafes.

Cafe Culture
 With time one cafe at Brigade road (CCD) paved the way for this subculture which spelled cool, social and accessible at the same time. Though Cafe Culture gave the urban India places to go to and engage in the above activities, the very thing which was the reason for the cafes to exist. got ignored.

Average Coffee
 Yes, I am talking about coffee. Since specialty cafes do not serve instant coffees and charge a premium, it is expected of them to maintain a standard and set benchmarks. Sadly, majority of people visiting cafes had no prior experience of quality coffee they were served with average quality. The very definition of Specialty Coffee means premium or gourmet and by any definition coffee served in cafes in India is not premium or gourmet as they are commodity coffees which are roasted in mass and then served stale. 

What Makes Coffee Premium
Three things are mandatory for the coffee to be labelled as specialty coffee. 1) It should taste the way it smells. 2) Roasted beans used to prepare coffee should not be older than fourteen days from the day of roasting. 3) Coffee should be prepared by trained professionals keeping in mind the finer points such as grind size, temperature of milk/water and type of beverage ( Cappuccino has less milk and more froth vs latte, which has more milk and less froth). 

Indian Cafes
I have been visiting cafes since 2001 and have manged to visit them in all parts of the country except east, which has traditionally been the stronghold of teas. I am sure that it will be very difficult to come up with a list of ten cafes who comply with the above three conditions. 

Most of the cafes serve coffee prepared with stale beans. Most of the cafes do not secure beans and roast them as per their profile which is to keep in mind the place where it grew and the various notes which one can highlight when roasting. Most of the cafes do not give proper attention to the art of making coffee, which is where the real magic happens. For example cappuccinos should be served at a temperature of 65 to 70 degrees while as this temperature retains the natural sweetness of the milk, but what is served is at higher temperature and that burns the milk and the natural flavors as well. 

Hopefulness
I am critical of the above practices, but I am hopeful too. I am hopeful that more and more people are exposed to specialty coffee. I am hopeful that there are more cafes to go to if one wants to drink coffee. I am hopeful because of the fact that more and more brands are looking at India as a viable market. 

How Big are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts
It brings me to the fact that Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts have decided to enter Indian market and set their foothold here. Now Starbucks ( Starbucks is the largest coffee-house company in the world, with 19,555 stores in 58 countries ) and Dunkin Donuts ( The company has more than 10,000 locations in 32 countries worldwide ) need no introduction. Both are the guerrillas in the world of coffee with their strengths. 

How are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts Good for Indian Market
Presence of both the companies will not just raise the standards to the next level, it will also start the next round of expansion. As a result the coffee market will experience better quality and more number of cafes. Icing on the cake is that with more people coming into the fold of specialty coffee, the market for home brewing will also come into existence and expand. As of now it is only limited to filter coffee, the desi style of brewing coffee. Most of the existing coffee companies do provide beans and powder for home brewing but they do not encourage home brewing. Starbucks will definitely promote it as it will also help them sell their coffee blends. 

Ah! It’s the Best Time to be a ‘Coffee Lover’
All in all it is going to be the best time to be a coffee lover in India. Once can expect great specialty coffee based beverages, great coffee beans which can be brewed at home, carefully brewed teas and some tasty treats. I am looking forward to the new phase in Indian Specialty Coffee. We at Shack have played small part in the same by setting up the first Specialty Coffee Brewing Bar (Kunzum Travel Cafe) in partnership with India’s best specialty roasters and we organize coffee workshops regularly to evangelize good coffee. Now we will have partners in crime. Amen!

coffeecommon:

Here’s a low tech, but fun video we made during TED a couple weeks ago, showcasing one method for the Hario V60 as demonstrated by the talented baristas at Coffee Common. Use this as a guide in your own experimentation and coffee brewing at home. Enjoy!

(via abhishekrai)

Syam hi,

When I was 21, and naive, and mostly broke, I was roaming in the community center in Saket , New Delhi. While my friends planned to watch a movie in the India’s first multiplex, I found myself acting smart by saying that I do not like copy cats, which multiplexes are. I sauntered off to Barista( Indian Version of Starbuck’s)  to sit for hour and a half and wait for them to come back. Then, Barista under the leadership Ravi Deol would serve above average cup of joe and great sandwiches .

I wandered off to this quirky looking cafe outlet, which had a more quirkier name. Qwikys !! I decided to check it out. As I was enetering the cafe the barista smiled and welcomed  . The decor was unusual as there was the bar island. The colours were brown and red, while yellow splashed here and there. It seemed very informal. Jazz was being belted out and it was not loud. Later I came to know that they had World Space Radio, which was a novelty then. The menu was somethng new to me as I had never announced panini pigghata and so much more. Everything seemed simple and unpretentious. There were two bean bags lying in one corner, while the other corner had those high chairs, which you get to perch up at the pubs.It all seemed so good.

I was a bit apprehensive in the beginning and broke. However the idiot in me made me act smart and I tried to show that I know about coffee. As per my idiotic act I orderered a shot, simply because it was the least costly item on the menu, which  eventually changed to Doppio, as it sounded cool and earned me some more respect in the eyes of the barista. I waited for the order along with a panini . It arrived and the barista stayed their to befriend the first coffee connosieur. I took the first sip and the bitterness hit me with all my stupidity added to it. I smiled bravely and praised the shot . Barista went back happily and I sat there thinking about different ways to get rid of the Doppio.Gosh! I did make a fool of myself but , I liked the ambience so much and the music and the bean bags( I had never seen them before), and pretty much everything there. I was so happy inside, and even more so for not shelling out the moolah to watch some stupid movie.

With my academic under achievement as against the overtly obvious potential, I had found the place to go where I could be at ease with myself, drinking lattes , which came with latte art and in wonderfully colourful ceramics. I still cherish those moments. Slowly I started introducing my friends to the place, and it became the place where I could get the quick release from the mediocre life, and even more mediocre achievements( a silly presentation in a silly management college, again a copycat). Sandwiches were to die for.

 I retracted into a shell for various reasons and would not step out of the home for the next few months. When I did come out, I went to Qwikys, and was crestfallen to see it closed. My last escape was gone. I tried to find the lingering soul there and I did bathe in the vibes left behind. However, I bid one last goodbye to the place, knowing that Saket will not be same again.

I wandered off to find myself and a new journey had begun. I tried my hands at various things to find the one thing for which I was made. I wrote GRE, studied scriptures, vegetated and meditated, but to no avail. Throughout I would get roasted coffee beans from Bangalore and grind them and drink the coffee through the drip coffee machine( Now I know that it is sacrilegious to use the coffee beans which has been roasted two weeks before, in fact a week is just fine, as the taste drops after the sixth day from roasting).

Zen Moment arrived. I could very clearly see that I have coffee as my constant companion, and I had only known more and more about it, and had never get tired about it. Therefore I decided that if it has to be anything then why not coffee. I realized the importance of a place which was Qwikys. It would be my homage to the great time I had spent at Qwikys , which showed me this trail. After that I had taught at Management Colleges and did projects for small businesses. I have also floated a small firm to offer the services involving the new media. But I have done all of it for the love of coffee, which happened nowhere else but at Qwikys.

Please accept my gratitude and honest appreciation.

What is Coffee?

Simple…Very Simple.

Coffee is nothing , but just a few cherries plucked, processed , dry and wet, dried, packaged, reopened, roasted and served . That’s it. Simple? Is it not?

However, this simple journey has been fascinating people for so long. Coffee is grown in various regions of the world, from South-Central Americas to Africa to Asia Pacific. The trail becomes even more interesting as the exceptional producers of coffee seldom consume the exceptional coffee grown in their countries. Therefore ,majority of the coffee grown in the coffee producing nations are exported as a cash crop, while coffee connoisseurs spread across the world go into the details and infuse life in the dead coffee beans.

Shack Coffee Co. is the result of over enthusiasm of one such coffee enthusiast, who has managed to find a partner for the idea, and make him believe that all we need in this world to give us joy will be duly granted by the roasted, burnt ,badgered, charred , dried, fermented and ground coffee beans. Amazingly few more people have started to believe this maxim of the coffee enthusiast. However, for the shack to be functional we need resources.

The journey, which some wise men say, is what maketh a man , and not the destination, for Shack is purported to be difficult and inundated with roadblocks. This electronic diary will keep itself abreast of each such happening in the life of the Shack. The prominent amongst the countless would be the coffee beans.

Yes, Shack is based in India, which does not grow coffee to cater to the specialty coffee . Till very recently coffee grown in India was to cater to the bulk market. However there have been exceptions . Adding to it Indian consumers have been used to instant coffee sold by global giant Nestle and the local giant Tata coffee(it owns thirty thousand acres of coffee plantations). Other than instant coffee we have locally bred coffee chains, which have defined coffee very differently. However there are warriors , who are fighting it out alone. Future posts will cover all the aspects and much more.

Happy Birthday Shack.