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Hot coffee is cool

Coffee is in. It's making people come together, the hip and the young-at-heart. Priyadarsshini Sharma takes a dekko at the coffee places in the city

AROMA PLUS ATTITUDE Relaxing with coffee Photo: Mahesh Harilal

It's coffee time in Kochi. Hot and stimulating as new coffee cafes mushroom in the city. With Kochi getting its first international coffee chain, Café Coffee Day, this Onam, a new, hip, young coffee culture has set in.

Says Anoop Scaria, who gave the city its very distinct Kashi art café, a coffee place, way back in 1997, " I grew up in AKG's Indian Coffee houses. The coffee culture then was different. AKG's vision was to make a coffee house the den of culture, which he got from his travels to France. But sadly today the Indian coffee house is a very watered down version of that. Kashi is not a coffee chain. It is not a Café Day, not a Barista, not Starbucks. We take pains to design a coffee. We have traditional Italian mocha that you fire and hand grind the roasted beans. We source our beans from the mountains of Coorg and Wyanad, beans that Basheer was addicted to: a very rustic coffee. The new places in the city have very modern machines to make the coffee. The settings are very plush. They are for the young. Kashi is basically an art café."

So is coffee being identified with only the young in the city? " Not really," says Anjali Kurian, a young mother of two. " I suppose every city goes through this. In Kerala everything is in the box, so closeted. With this openness at coffee places, people can interact with people in the presence of people. It may just do away with the snobbery or shyness. Anyway middle age for me is 80, so these places are for the eighty-year-olds too."

Coffee culture

Well, what then is the coffee culture that unites the eighteens to eighties? "The coffee culture is wonderful; informal and casual. You can sit around with people and talk about things without alcohol being drunk. In fact Kochi has been ready for such a culture for quite sometime," says Anjali. Reiterates the café in-charge of Café Coffe Day, Amit Menon, " From the time we started ten days ago we have had such a fantastic response that we are wondering why we were not here before." Being on M G Road, opposite Shenoy Theatre, Café Coffee Day draws the crowds, not only the moviegoers but also the campus crowds of Maharajas, St Theresa's and St Albert's. Mr Menon reads out a comment from the visitor's book of the café: " The city can change from here," pointing at the tide flowing towards a young, hip, trendy, in- the-face stance for living it up.

Says a coffee buff, Rakhee, whose favourite hangout is Coffee Beanz, " Coffee places are not so expensive. They are cool, casual places so it draws the college crowd. We generally chat about movies and fashion. The ambience is so laid back that one can chat comfortably. Nobody minds your sitting for long hours"

To Rajesh Menon, father of two teenage kids, the coffee culture started with Sridhar café. "Unlike Bangalore and Mumbai kids our kids don't look for evening outings. As they are more protected, a slice of cake and coffee is preferred to Bacardi Breezer. Our kids approach is more towards a coffee-and-a-laugh together. Kids feel a little more adult at such outings."

"Yes, we chill out", explains 17- year- old Suthirth Goswami, using a very with- the- times terminology. "It's not like before. It's mainly for the young." But the manager of an upmarket clothes store refutes saying, "Coffee places are like mini parliaments. Stimulating beverage coupled with a stimulating ambience generates good conversation and debate." "Well, it was precisely because there was a dearth of such places that we stared Cocoa Tree," says Diwia Thomas, proprietor. "We get office goers, college students and families. In fact the message boards in the café are full of messages and notes from our regular customers to others so that we cannot even take them off. It's like an ongoing conversation." So, the city is alive and kicking to the aroma of freshly roasted and ground coffee, to cafe latte, to cappuccinos, to Ethiopian qahqah, Kenyan safari, cremosas, smoothies, espresso and of course our very own filter coffee. And whether it is café palette at Raymonds, the café at Seemati, Kappi kadai at Nilgiris Supermarket or the numerous coffee nooks in the city, one thing is sure, a lot is happening over coffee at all these places.

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