A for Artisan is the new A for Apple. Trivialised, overused and name-dropped with immaculate ease, the word artisan seems to be the flavour of the months that begin with the letters J, F, M, A, S, O, N and D. The time therefore has never been riper to discuss what really is artisan coffee and why it shouldn’t be shrouded in mystery for the stay- aam -and-drink-coffee kinda aadmi .
Small batch, big catch
When it comes to artisan coffee, scale is not going to get you anywhere. Small batches for cultivation, processing, storing, roasting is where all the magic lies. This happens through complete control over individual processes, constant supervision and unfettered application of Shri Right Brain.
Cultivate a good habit
The most prominent characteristics of good artisan coffee are developed during its cultivation process. Using sun and shade creatively, growing coffee in the midst of other fruit or spice patches (cross cropping), using terroir intelligently, allowing certain coffees to grow wild etc are some of the methods used to work on developing newer nuances in the final tasting cup. Just some good old science meets art that comes with decades of green-thumbed messing around on the farm!
Processed is not bad
While the hipster-thinking, tree-hugging, whole-food-loving lot of us might look down on words like ‘processed’, ‘unsustainable’ or ‘inexpensive’ when it comes to food, processing coffee is not a bad thing at all. All coffee berries, once picked from the plant, must undergo processing, and this simply refers to changing the form of the coffee from a ripe cherry to a dried green bean.
With artisan coffee, processing is a miracle worker. There’s just so much one can do at this stage to make coffee taste truly unique. Whether you let the entire cherry dry out in the sun to give the coffee one kind of flavour, or you wash the skin and the pulp off completely before drying to give it another, or you traverse the middle path to create pulp sun-dried coffee, the tallest tree on the farm is the limit.
Processing in many cases also includes a round of fermentation, which while being a necessity, can also be harnessed to throw up some pretty interesting flavours and textures.
Storehouse of knowledge
While there are the usual coffee practices of keeping the processed, dried and bagged green beans away from moisture, high temperature or too much oxygen, when you are working on artisan coffee, even this stage becomes a canvas to create something interesting. Coffee stored with other organic material for long periods of time is known to imbibe fragrances and aromas from them. The challenge is in controlling moisture, any oils that the other material might impart, and a whole lot of other variables that could possibly produce off notes in your coffee.
Roasting
A big part of artisan coffee is in its roasting. Profile roasting simply means manipulating the temperature-time curve on the roasting graph to bring out the best that that particular batch of green beans has to offer. Some coffees work better with higher start temperatures and a gradual slow-down; others work better with lower temperatures right through. In India, while our traditional ways of consuming filter coffee (think South-Indian, stainless steel) are timeless, there’s never been a better time to start exploring and experimenting with newer brews and newer methods of brewing them. There’s such a surge in interest in these third-wave coffees sold online and in gourmet stores across the country, as well as a wealth of information (local content included) on how to brew, how to taste coffees, how to choose etc, that the Indian coffee drinker has never had it so good.
