Wave new friends

It’s pop-science for adults. A new book, Superpowers on the Shore, looks at unusual life in intertidal pools: creatures that can go invisible, smash like the Hulk, even clone themselves

and cephalopods such as octopi and squid that come sheathed in invisibility cloaks.

In this small world are also big achievers. The cone snail produces one of the deadliest venoms in the world; certain limpets’ teeth, composed of chitin and goethite ( an ironbased mineral), are among the strongest naturally occurring materials known to mankind.

Mehta was introduced to the world of intertidal zones four years ago, when she attended a shore walk with the citizen-science group Marine Life of Mumbai (MLoM). This group has been documenting the vast array of marine species that live in Mumbai’s intertidal zones.

Mehta fell in love with this world. She’d spent almost two decades writing about lush forests and river systems for publications such as Lonely Planet and Nature inFocus. Here was a multi-episode National Geographic-worthy documentary playing out right on her doorstep. spoke about particular creatures, I would compare them with superheroes, or ninja assassins. I’d put them down with a special mention of their arsenals.”

Mehta has met most of the creatures featured in her book, which is divided into three broad sections. The first contains detailed descriptions of creatures and their special powers, under chapter titles such as Power of Invisibility (decorator crab, cephalopods), Power of Creation (squids, turtles), Assassins of the Intertidal (the cone snail, bobbit worm), and Defence Against the Dark Arts (Portuguese man o’ war, pufferfish).

A second section, presented as passages interspersed between the chapters, is a fictional narrative of life in the tidepools, from the point of view of the homely hermit crab (“the creature who is most relatable to us, because they are such strugglers,” laughs Mehta). The third is a series of application letters from various creatures, to the democratic people of the marine realm, asking for membership to the shore superhero team.

It’s an unusual approach, even for a work of pop science. But it succeeds in making this almost-alien world accessible to the reader, despite the necessary jargon that appears from time to time. It’s an easy read. But it wasn’t an easy book to write, she says. Sometimes a single sentence involved referring to multiple scientific papers. “The research was very challenging,” she says.

Superpowers on the Shore also contains illustrations of some of the creatures, drawn by visual science communicator Jessica Luis, who has worked on MLoM shore guides and on marine mammal identification charts in the past. Her background in marine ecology helped, as did her own past encounters with many of the creatures on the list, she says.

“We decided that the illustrations didn’t have to be entirely realistic, but had to offer a sense of the creatures’ worlds, and their unique powers and behaviours.” The illustrations focus on shapes and movement, and are all in black-and-white.

“Colour is one of the first things that strikes you when you see most marine creatures — the Portuguese man o’ war’s blue and purple, the glow of bioluminescence, bright green zoanthids, sea slugs in every possible hue, pink-striped porcelain crabs. The black-and-white, one hopes, will leads to an Aha! moment for readers who then get to meet these creatures in all their colourful glory,” Luis says.

But you don’t have to start with the intertidal pools or the book. There’s magic all around, Mehta says. “You can look at your window sill or the path you run on… I’ve come to realise that every living thing around me, even the spiders in my house, are creatures with superpowers. Some, I just don’t know about yet.”

WATCH: Swetha Sivakumar’s top tips on buying coffee.

When hot water hits ground coffee, a rich aroma fills the air. This is not surprising, since more than 800 aroma compounds have been identified in coffee. The hot water also releases the browning pigments, cell wall carbohydrates and taste compounds that give a mug of coffee body.

But all this yumminess comes with a ticking clock. The high heat at which coffee grounds are brewed releases the volatile flavour, but it’s a flavour that starts to fade within an hour of brewing.

The coffee tree is native to East Africa, though historians cite Yemen as the birthplace of the beverage. From Yemen, coffee made its way to India, legend has it, via a Sufi saint named Baba Budan, who smuggled a handful of seeds into India and planted them in Karnataka in the 16th century. Domestically, coffee is still grown predominantly in the hills of South India, with Karnataka accounting for 70% of India’s coffee production.

Although several species of coffee exist, the two most commonly cultivated ones are Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is known for its refined flavour and sweeter taste, while Robusta is strong and bitter, more pest-resilient, and grows readily at lower altitudes and in higher temperatures. Robusta quickly became the preferred choice for South Indian filter kaapi. It is used in many instant coffees too.

For that unique South Indian filter kaapi flavour, it helps to add chicory. Chicory powder is made by roasting and grinding the root of the chicory plant. It is caffeine-free and has long been used as a coffee substitute, but coffee and chicory weren’t mixed until the shortages of World War 2. Then, what began as an additive became a mainstay. But chicory is also much cheaper than coffee, so some coffee producers overdo the ratio to cut costs. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) dictates that “the coffee content in any coffee-chicory mixture shall not be less than 51% by mass.”

Most coffees are processed the same way: Once the beans are picked, washed and fermented, they are roasted to release the flavour locked within.

The hotter the roasting temperature, the stronger the flavour (though sometimes a dark roast may be used as a way to hide deficiencies in lower-quality beans or get a uniform flavour out of beans from multiple sources).

For those looking to reduce their intake of caffeine, there’s decaffeinated coffee, where the caffeine is removed from the beans using either water (Swiss Water

Process) or chemical solvents such as methylene chloride or ethyl acetate.

The Swiss Water Process takes eight to 10 hours and is thus more expensive.

While coffee aficionados these days obsess over where their beans are from, how they were roasted, etc, many coffee drinkers still love the ease of instant coffee. This variant was first popularised by the Swiss conglomerate Nestlé’s Nescafé brand. In 1938, Nescafé worked with the Brazilian government to process a bumper coffee harvest. It used a new method to preserve the vast quantities better: concentrated brewed coffee extract was sprayed into a drying tower and the water extracted. The high temperatures led to a harsh, slightly bitter product. In 1965, a newer process emerged where freeze-drying technology was used to make instant coffee. Here the coffee extract is rapidly frozen and broken into granules. It is then subjected to a vacuum, which dries out the coffee via sublimation. Since there is no heat or oxygen exposure, this kind of instant coffee retains more aroma and flavour.

There are exorbitant coffees, cheap coffees, strong coffees and weak ones. When it comes to this brew, there are really no wrong answers. Except for the 3-in-1 ready mixes that pack in coffee, creamer and sugar in a single sachet. To prevent clumping in water and hardening in their packaging, these sachets are packed with emulsifiers, stabilisers, anti-caking agents and hydrogenated fats. You’re better off just buying instant. Or stopping at a good coffee stall on the way to work.