For as long as I remember, I have been judging the people who’d drink black coffee. I always thought that sugar and milk were “the ingredients” that made coffee taste good! Why are people obsessed with something so bitter & unpalatable, I thought. Until I realized I was naive & inexperienced to think so. Or maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t tasted a great cup of coffee. Actually, both.
It was the first week of February this year that I visited a coffee plantation in Karnataka & stayed at the resort nestled inside the plantation. Early signs of spring & the perfect time for coffee harvesting made the entire place radiate beauty. It was all green & perfectly sunny. The coffee plants were glowing & it felt as if the red coffee cherries were calling to be plucked. Of course it just wasn’t the nature, even the stay & experience at the resort was delicately crafted. Scrumptiously delicious food, and outdoor open shower, just to name a few experiences that made the stay unique. Every single room had coffee plants around it, filled with ripe red coffee cherries, ready to be harvested.
With so much coffee around, it would’ve been dumb to not pluck any. So in order to be smart, extend my experience & cater to my inner child that loves everything plants, I plucked as many coffee cherries as I could, when I could. I then went on to make my own coffee - from cherries to beans - processing, roasting, grinding & brewing. Do out check how I processed coffee to brew my first cup from scratch!
Walking around the resort, I was told, was an experience in itself. For it had hundreds of species of plants & trees that thrive well with coffee. Silveroak for example, provides the shade required for coffee plants to survive. Black pepper climbers act as natural insecticides & pesticides keeping the pests away. I was also a little overwhelmed to see & value the hard-work put in by hundreds of people to craft an experience in a cup, which often goes under-appreciated.
During one such “nature walk” around the plantation, I learned about the 2 types of coffee they grew there - Arabica & Robusta. Arabica plants were smaller, with the branches closer together & leaves much smaller in size than the Robusta plants, which were wider and more spread out. There was a significant difference in the size of their cherries and leaves. Arabica is the smaller one. Robusta, apparently has much more caffeine than Arabica - which has sweeter undertones compared the former, making it more widely acknowledged & demanded. Well, I had till now, only known about Arabica coffee so I though it would be interesting to try Robusta too.
Next Morning, at the breakfast I had a cup of freshly prepared filter coffee. Neither too bitter, nor acidic, the filter coffee was perfectly hitting the tastebuds & infusing caffeine with each sip. It was made from the coffee grown in-house. Now the obvious question in my mind was - which kind of coffee beans are used for this - robusta or arabica? I learned that it was a mix of both, in the proportions of 30:70, because Robusta is too strong & rough for most people’s taste.
Too strong & rough - what does that even mean, I thought to myself. And so I asked them to make me a cappuccino made from Robusta beans only!!
It was unlike any coffee I’ve ever tasted before, the best cup of cappuccino I had ever had. At first, looking at the cup, I thought there’s too much milk in there. But as I tasted the coffee - I could distinguish the taste of Robusta from Arabica. This one was pure Robusta & had a little harsh, earthy taste with a bitter undertone. It also had high acidity - exactly why they’d added milk to balance it out. One sip, a break, another sip, a new sensation. This went on till the cup was finally empty. And that’s when I knew I could grow to love this taste too! What a preparation! I discovered a richness and depth that I had never imagined possible.
I love how I started appreciating coffee in this very plantation. Dancing in the woods, running around the narrow roads, looking at the plants sway with the wind, sitting calmly thinking about life, listening to the ducks quack & looking at the clouds move, I learnt a lesson that stayed with me long after I had left the place. I often describe myself as thriving in nature and sunlight, basically a humanised plant. Hence, this place was absolute heaven for me, it was perfect for enjoying solitude in the arms of nature with no human interruption.
A couple of days later, when I was back & recovering from the blissful experience, I realized this stands true for most things in life. Just as I had once dismissed black coffee as too bitter, how many other experiences had I written off without giving them a fair chance? How many opportunities for growth and discovery had passed me by simply because I was too quick to judge or too afraid to step out of my comfort zone? My time here taught me that true understanding comes not from preconceived notions or surface-level observations, but from diving deep and embracing the unknown. When in doubt, don’t run, take things one step (or sip) at a time. You will unearth new flavours & aromas with each sip (or step), which you will most definitely enjoy & be grateful for.
So, this piece right here is a friendly reminder to everyone reading it (to future Mrunal too) that life, like coffee, is meant to be savoured, not rushed through :)