SIP AN ARTISAN BREW
Join the cold brew bandwagon
If you’re a coffee fiend, there’s little that's better than a tall glass of a perfectly brewed cold coffee. And we’re not talking about a milky frappe made with instant coffee. Here are some recommendations for a delicious cold brew done right.
Do-it-yourself: The Flying Squirrel and Brew Ex Machina
Ashish D’Abreo and Tej Thammaiah offer a cold brew blend of roasted and ground beans that can be brewed at home. They use honey sundried beans from Thammaiah’s farm in Coorg. The beans are dried with their fruity pulp, which lends sweetness to the coffee. By extending the roasting process, they let the sugar melt slowly. Although this might not work for hot brews, it works wonderfully for cold brews. Vishal Sainani, a fan of cold coffee, was bitten by the cold brew bug three years ago. He now brews batches of freshly roasted beans and sells cold brew concentrates through Brew Ex Machina so that you can save yourself a trip to the café or the hassle of home-brewing.
Buy the bottle: Koinonia Coffee Roasters
Founded by Siddhartha Marchant, Shannon D’Souza and Clement Sissia, Koinonia’s primary aim is to highlight Indian specialty coffees. Their roastery in Mumbai currently stocks beans from four estates in the South. Their ready-to-drink chocolatey cold brew is made with 100 percent Arabica beans.
By the glass: Blue Tokai and 212 All Good
212 All Good’s approach to food is about sticking to the pure and going back to the roots. They serve a delicious cold brew as well as nitro coffee, which they believe might be new age but remains purist in the way it maintains the form of coffee. Blue Tokai has been at the forefront of third wave coffee in Delhi and Mumbai. Besides a range of different cold brews, they also have a nitro coffee. Served in a small cognac glass, their nitro coffee looks like a stout
Bring on the fizz: Svami Drinks
Shuttling between Singapore and Mumbai, Sahil Jatana took four to five months to arrive at a base blend, which would suit the Indian palate perfectly. He has chosen to serve cold brews and nitro coffees at bars and restaurants; so, people who don’t drink alcohol can enjoy the stout-like coffee. Their house blend has flavours like hazelnut and coconut molasses, for which they use good quality Indian Arabica beans, plantation A & AA which are roasted in two to three different profiles and blended.
Interesting infusions: Café Zoe
Jeremie Horowitz is the Mumbai restaurant’s resident coffeephile. The espresso drinker has been experimenting with cold brews and has discovered that a blend of Indian Arabica and Robusta from Bangalorebased The Coffee Company gives him the perfect brew with a hint of bitterness and a hit of caffeine. Launching soon, their cold brews will be served with soda or tonic water and infusions will include vanilla and citruses.