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09.05.2024 - 18:29 / lonelyplanet.com
India may be famous for its fragrant, spice-infused chai, but in Bengaluru (Bangalore) and elsewhere across South India, another hot caffeinated drink reigns supreme.
Walk past any local breakfast joint in Bengaluru and you’ll see swarms of people standing at stainless steel tables washing down fluffy idlis (South Indian spongy, round, fermented rice cake) and crispy masala dosas with piping hot cups of filter coffee, also known as filter kaapi.
The strong brew – milky, sweet, blended with chicory and often frothy – is a way of life for many Bangaloreans. Whether enjoyed at home, in vintage or contemporary coffee houses or at quick-service darshini cafes (vegetarian fast food spots), South Indian filter coffee fuels a city that’s always on the go.
“It is bold, it is intense and it is a small, short cup [of coffee],” says Suhas Dwarkanath, founder and owner of Benki Brewing Tools, a Bengaluru-based company that sells a wide variety of tools for expert home coffee brewing and also runs a coffee shop in the city.
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South Indians’ love of coffee goes way back. Legend has it that Baba Budan, a 16th-century Sufi saint, brought coffee to India from Yemen on his way home from the hajj. Though it was illegal to take green coffee beans from the Arabian Peninsula, he smuggled seven of them to plant in the Chandradrona Hills, outside of Bengaluru, and so coffee cultivation in South India began.
Recent genetic studies on the origins of Indian coffee indicate there’s very little or no genetic variation, with possibly only one or two original plants, says Kurush F Dalal, an archaeologist and culinary anthropologist in Mumbai. “That suddenly puts the spotlight back on the Baba Budan story and makes a lot of people in the field wonder whether there is actually some truth in the legend.”
Thanks to Baba Budan or not, by the 20th century, coffee had become hugely popular throughout the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Today, Karnataka produces more than 70% of India's coffee – much of it for export – and many of its coffee cultivation areas, including Coorg and Chikmagalur, are now travel hot spots.
It’s no wonder then that Karnataka’s capital, Bengaluru, is also considered to be the coffee capital of India. Bengaluru is not only home to some of the most iconic places to get filter coffee, it’s also the birthplace of modern coffee shops like Café Coffee Day, the country's largest coffee chain, and Third Wave Coffee, which is among the biggest specialty coffee chains in India.
Bengaluru became the go-to place for all things coffee in the 1940s, when the Indian government set up the Coffee Board of India’s headquarters there. Economic reforms
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