Hey,
Welcome to Project 2.2's weekly newsletter "The Right Dosage".
In this newsletter, I talk about the nuances of coffee brewing, evolving specialty coffee business models and what's new in the industry. And yes, my top coffee recommendations of the week.
SPOTLIGHT
Coffees involve a lot of subjectivity simply because of the quantum of variables involved. Being able to find the right fit with a coffee can be a task. And buying a 250gm pack is an investment of time, not just money. I attempt to ease this process for you. Here are my top 3 picks for the week:
1. Kalledevarapura by Alchemist Roastery Coffee Co - 89 points
2. Bison Estate by Corridor Seven Coffee Roasters - 90 points
3. Riverdale N72 by Corridor Seven Coffee Roasters - 92 points
Gaurav at Alchemist is doing a great job with his coffees and their KDP is my favorite everyday coffee. Check them out here.
WHAT'S BREWING?
I have been talking to 2 coffee growers over the last couple of weeks trying to understand their point of view in the scheme of things. A common theme that came out was the need to command better prices as wholesale of coffee is a high volume-low margin game. Given that their business is highly seasonal by nature, it puts pressure on their liquidity and you need to have a high risk appetite to be able to weather any externalities. So a way to hedge their risk is to increase margins which they can do by vertically integrating. That requires capex, networks and a stable demand. A challenging piece. But there is a solution - Tripartite agreements. Nakul Mysore is one of the pioneers in the Indian specialty coffee space. Check out his post to know how this works. I will be doing a deeper coverage soon.
UP YOUR GAME
I have a challenge for you. You see those fancy sounding tasting notes on the coffee packs right? You need to extract those. It may happen that you don't extract all of it in one cup. The key to striking that balance will come with time. Till then you should try to extract those flavour notes. Read my blog on "Essential Brewing Parameters" to get a sense of what all can be tweaked to extract those nuances. If you are able to, let me know on Instagram - drop me a message, tag me in your story, or don't. Whatever excites you.
WHAT'S NEW?
1. Tribe-O Project (Koraput, Odisha) coffee is now available at Dope and Marc's Coffee.
2. Blue Tokai is taking coffee brewing workshops online.
3. Celebrity photographer Dabboo Ratnani is upping his coffee game pretty seriously. Is he preparing for the AeroPress Championships? I do hope he is. Recognition will help the specialty coffee space pick up pace and allow it to be become mainstream.
NEXT UP
1. If I had a million dollars, I'd invest in Beanrove (releasing tonight)
2. Are VCs looking at the Indian specialty coffee space? The financials do look exciting
If you want me to share a sneak peak of the companies that I am looking at, reach out to me via Instagram.
Stay safe,
Nishchay
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