Fascinating Coffee Science & Art collab with Ramya

Karafa, Hyderabad | India

When you think of Hyderabad what comes to your mind is Biryani & Irani Chai (Tea) and certainly not Coffee. Specialty Coffee is indeed a long shot. But there is a new wave of roasters and brewers who are trying to defy these conventions and make their mark in this space.

Karafa is one of them, a premium chic coffee bar where one can enjoy specialty coffees from around the world, made with different brewing techniques.

My guest for this story is

Ramya

who has been my ardent follower & jumped onto cover this chic cafe in great detail. Over to her now:

Let’s start with the Tasting Flight, where three different coffees are offered in pour over style along with palate cleanser to cleanse your taste buds in between tastings.

1. Pineapple Fermented grown at Elevation 1170m to 1600m with Tasting notes: Elements of apricot, prunes and berries.

2. Frozen Cherry grown at Elevation 1170m to 1600m with Tasting notes: Elements of sour berries, raisins and chocolates.

3. Kenyan grown at Elevation 1600m with asting notes: Elements of sugarcane, mandarin and blueberry.

PourSteady:

Karafa uses ultra-modern PourSteady 3-in-1 machine to brew the slow coffees fast 😊 I saw this in India for the first time.

Here’s the side story on PourSteady which I learnt. I believe it offers better control flow rate. A line of Hario carafes catches each brew as it drips through to the other side. When continuously running, a barista can make around 1 cup per minute when all stations are in use. Pour-over orders are a simple button press instead of a time intensive task.

While waiting for coffee at a San Francisco Blue Bottle Coffee in late 2012, two robotics engineers observed a problem they knew they could solve. They saw a barista making pour-over after pour-over, repeating the same recipe over and over while the line grew. They believed they could apply the same engineering and technology they used for test rovers for NASA and laboratory equipment for the pharmaceutical industry to busy coffee shops.

That’s how Mark Sibenac and Stuart Heys went about building the first automatic pour-over coffee maker prototype. Along with Stephan von Muehlen, they brought it to the NYC Maker Faire in 2013, where it made over 800 cups of coffee in the first weekend. The team brought home a bunch of ribbons, and the machine was featured on the tested blog. They realized then there might be more to this than just a science fair project.

Poursteady and the Steady Equipment Corporation were born.

Design backed by Science:

Another eye-catching pour over machine here is the Nucleus ‘Paragon’ for making Iced Cold Brews, a true design innovation from Australia.

The Paragon’s patented design utilises innovative extract chilling technology to elevate your brewing experience.

Resulting from years of extensive research, the tool has been scientifically proven to capture and express up to 40% more key aroma volatile molecules than an identical brew without chilling – flavour that would otherwise be lost to the environment.

The chilling rock is a core component of the Paragon. Constructed from food-grade stainless steel and coated with a layer of highly durable titanium, its spherical shape and large surface area allow for even and rapid chilling. Offering greater thermal capacity, the high-density liquid gel centre maintains colder temperatures for longer and freezes faster than hollow or water-filled alternatives.

Paragon is designed to fit your favourite vessel and preferred pour-over brewer.

All in all, I truly enjoyed my visit which was a perfect combo of Coffee Science & Technology meets Karafa’s Café Design & Architecture.

Hope you enjoyed this gorgeous story. Until we meet next time, stay curious-stay caffeinated. Arrrivederci!