On Tuesday 28 Aug 2007 12:40 am, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: > Chicory laden south Indian coffee
Not all South Indian coffee is "chicory laden". The effect achieved by "one's just like another" chain outlets is to kill variation in favor of promoting brand names that taste like mud. Like someone said a lot of coffee does taste like mud - because it's ground. Apart from the quality of the beans, the actual coffee extract is highly temperature dependent with the volatiles apparently being ideally extracted at about 87 to 90 deg C. Lower or higher temperatures extract other volatiles in greater proportions changing the taste. For me personally - I have found that the best coffees get made using certain equipment. Standard filters (manual or electric) are the worst if you are stingy in the amount of coffee you load into them, and there can be a lot of variation unless you are careful. They work out more expensive in the long run. Italian "Neapolitana" filters that require manual inversion after the water boils are among the best. Probably in between are the "Expresso" coffee makers - either the manual (twin truncated cone) type or the electric one that I currently use. For Mysore coffee the steam outlet is best reserved for simply letting out steam and depressurizing the boiler and nothing else. It's an otherwise useless appendage. However, froth created by pouring the coffee from one container to another has useful flavor enhancing properties. The quality of milk too is important for Mysooru coffee - and ideally it should be boiled beforehand, and preheated milk added to hot coffee decoction. Reheated coffee is a disaster. shiv
