World Coffee Conference 2023 in Bangalore, India.

So we arrived at Bangalore on 26th and attended all the workshops, got to see the Brewers consistently, trying to win the championship. It was also incredible to meet so many people who were connected to us via Instagram, and we got to see them in person for the first time.

Once I reach to Bangalore, I grabbed my luggage and straightaway headed to have my dinner. Considering I left the airport at 5:30 and I reached dinner at eight. It was very evident that people from all over the world were arriving at Bangalore and the streets got completely jammed. Uff, it was one of the most insane trips of my life.

Next morning, I dress up and huddled towards the Bangalore Palace to be a part of WCC. Of course, I couldn’t resist clicking a hundred photos, the management and the coffee Board, the KPA had done an amazing job of hosting this conference. Every stall, and every corner of the palace was lit up and decorated well.

In the previous year before we had done our specialty lots, we had met the men from Ekata Coffee. they had visited our farm and got to see the cherries in their full ripe state and we have come to an agreement to make a ton of coffee just for them to export it to Europe.

Ekata is a well connected group that works on fermenting some top notch quality coffees. They even go to lengths to roast the coffee from the farms and cup them almost every day. Since they have been working in farms all over India. They have a very good connection and understanding of how these coffees ferment and get a beautiful flavour profile.

Karnataka is just a small part of the experimentations and I was super glad to work with them and come out with some exceptional coffees that have made it to Europe and been a special part of the Canephora festival.

Meet Sandesh Deranna, from Adivi collective. He promotes the tribal specialty coffee that has grown at Araku directly from the farms. They work with some exceptional nano lots and also massive lots that goes in tons to abroad.

The coffee was super subtle and the flavours were so rich and it was perfectly brewed in a V60. Sandesh got introduced to my parents and we spoke about the generations that have worked at the coffee farms to produce what we taste in todays cup.

I’ve heard a lot about the Black Baza, which is a brand held by an environmental researcher who loves naming the coffees after wildlife that exist within the farms where they produce the specialty coffee. I feel that this brand has two main pillars that is the small farmers and traceability.

This was the first time I came across this brand and got to meet everyone. The ideologies and the coffees seem to go hand-in-hand. I like her, even though she’s from the environment field and me being a qualified wildlifer, we could bond over the wild beings.

There are a ton of Arabica cafes all around the world, it is a pleasure to have one of the first 100% robusta cafes in India. This cafe is called Last House Cafe which is found in Hyderabad.

The owner, Naina has her own coffee plantation, and she also has a couple of baristas under her wing. Most of her coffees are roasted by Prajwal from Harmakki coffee company which is in Bangalore. One of my favourite coffees that I have produced two years back is served at her Cafe. I’m so glad that a roaster would recommend one of our beans to this wonderful unique cafe.

At the exhibition arena of WCC, there was a battle of the best barista which went on for days. In the next photo, you will also get to see the person who won. He is none other than Mr. Hrishikesh from Cafe De Meet. He won the national barista championship 2024, everyone was so thrilled to see how amazingly well he had performed,and the drink blew away the judges.

Source

One of the best workshops that I attended was “Sipping sustainability: exploring climate resilient coffee species” total of five speakers spoke on their experience with robusta species even liberica which we call as Mara Kappi or tree coffee. Other varieties of coffee like Laurina, Ibo, Eugenoides, Selection 4595, Racemosa, Excelsa and Stenophylla are also fermented and grown in a sustainable way. Each speaker spoke about the species that they were experimenting with. The origin, the process, the variety, including the caffeine content gives such unique fruity, candy, spices, herbal flavours.

A total of 12 coffees was served as the speakers spoke about each of the variety and what it took to process these incredible coffees. They have a separate section for remarks where we would evaluate at the end of each cup. Since they have already given the flavour notes, it became easier to find similar notes. Sometimes we could also highlight completely different notes.

Matteo Pavoni is an Italian barista champion 2022, he also has a brand called peacocks coffee where they roast specialty coffees. The one that we had tried was of a natural process coffee that originated in Colombia. It had such dry pineapple flavour to it with a hint of orange and red Apple. The way he approached coffee and the experience that he was putting forth so vividly, spoke so vividly about the way he has experienced coffee as a beverage.

On the left, you can see Charles Dennison who gave us a taste of Racemosa coffee, the given notes were grape, cinnamon and star anise. The fruity notes overpowered any bitterness that was there in the cup, what is even more incredible is this coffee is found growing in the middle of the forest and the coast of South Africa. The flowering is normally in September for this kind of variety. I the fruiting is in November. For any other coffee. It takes nine months for the coffee Cherry to turn from the flower to the fruit. Unlike any coffee that I have tasted up to date, this coffee had a unique aroma of guava.

Another workshop was sample roasting at the origin. The workshop was conducted by Matthew Orchad, he is a coffee roaster, Q grader and sensory enthusiast. The idea was to teach roasting for the farmers and three samples were specially roasted in the Ikawa roaster. The Ikawa roasts a maximum of 50g per cycle. To specially learn, the Ikawa was connected to the app which shows the temperature, water activity, moisture release and the time. The first crack is clearly noted and every step like the yellow stage, biscuit stage and other stages can be highlighted. This helps in
understanding the roast and we can replicate this process again.

I don’t know how many of y’all have read any of my previous posts, and for those of you who haven’t read it. The name of our coffee estate is St. Margaret Estate. The lady who came to talk about the Lalcafe yeasts her name was Margaret too.

Have you ever tried some boozy coffee? Well in WCC this is one of the coffees that I had which was fermented so differently. Yes, it was quite interesting. Yet I had so many questions in my mind when it came to the processing aspect.

Last, but not the least, I got to meet the first cupper of Asia, she is none other than Sonalini Menon.

Well, it has been a pleasure taking you through my World coffee conference journey. See you on the next post. Do like and comment and share your thoughts on the coffee conferences you ever been to