THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fifteen grams of ground coffee and 300 ml of hot water. The brew is left in the pretty French Press, a glass gadget with steel top, for five minutes. Then, the umbrella-like top with a sieve at the other end is pressed gently down. There is no hurry to it and the sight of the warm decoction collecting inside the glass is pure indulgence for the coffee lover. The morning, spent in this delectable fashion, inside the soft-hued interior of Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), watching coffee made at a makeshift cooking area, definitely had an aromatic high to it. The largest retail chain of coffee cafes has tagged its new consumer connect initiative quite imaginatively - ‘Brew a bond - Be a friend of coffee’. The launch of the ‘Coffee Festival’, which will go on in the city’s CCD outlet on the Vellayambalam-Kowdiar road till August 25, had a warm start to it on Tuesday morning. Sam Rozario, introduced to the press as a ‘Coffee evangelist’, brewed hot coffee blends off two cool devices - the Stovetop Espresso maker and the French Press. Stovetop, modelled after the traditional decoction-maker, was placed over a hotplate to get a strong brew that boiled up to fill the upper part of the two-storeyed gadget. An innovation that can be traced back to haute cuisine, the French Press is also called ‘cafetiére á piston’. The comely tool requires no boiling and only needs the blend of hot water and coffee powder to mix well and settle in about five minutes. “Coffee is very subjective,” said brewmaster Rozario, giving the whole exercise a touch of the profound. “There are over 64 brews and innumerable blends that can be made from them. Unlike tea, this is a drink that each person can have according to one’s personal taste,” he said. A winner of India Barista Championship, Rozario has tested and tasted coffee blends for over eight years and is Assistant Manager in CCD Level 1, Chennai. He would have his coffee strong and hot, said Rozario, adding, “Every time I taste a brew, I sense a difference to it and this experiment with coffee just seems to go on.” The CCDayers and the uninitiated and even the tea loyalists who would like to check out this beverage, with an intellectual flavour to it, can walk into the shop to get some tips on coffee-making at the ‘Brew a cuppa workshop’. One can also try making it on one’s own and even earn a certificate endorsing your amateur brewmaster status. The easy-to-handle coffee-making tools and five types of CCD’s signature coffee powders are also on sale, in case you plan to shift your loyalties and have a cuppa coffee every morning.
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