Hey folks,
In this week’s slow drip we have an interesting recipe, a question about authenticity and a different perspective… Let’s go!
🧊Cooler Brews
We tried something pretty different this week. We brewed our lightest roast, Vibrant Edition 2, at 88℃ using the Hario Switch. Yup, that’s pretty cold for a light roast. Our recipe had 2 open pours and one closed one and the results were far from tepid. The combination of the steep and lower temp allowed us to taste a very different version of the same coffee and it was great. Definitely worth a try. Check out the video HERE, to find out more.
💎Authenticity In Coffee… And Beyond
We’d like to use this moment to use SOFI, Aramse’s brewer, and ask what is authenticity, really? @ryantagcoffee’s reel featuring SOFI, has been posted 3 times and every time he does, it goes viral (one of them got over 16 million views with 329k likes!). Mind = blown. 🤯
And each time, there are a gazillion comments about how this isn't "real" South Indian filter coffee. So let’s unpack what that is.
We have asked ourselves this question about authenticity often, both about SOFI and coffee more broadly. SOFI was inspired by the South Indian Filter (SIF) but modernised for specialty coffee. It is a hat-tip to history for those of us who grew up around it, but it is NOT meant to take you back in time. Quite the opposite. At Aramse, we deliberately wanted to take the SIF out of its filter kaapi shadows. To relegate an entire brewer to one drink (coffee, frothed milk & sugar), made with one type of coffee (coffee + chicory), seemed a travesty.
We designed SOFI thoughtfully and intentionally to showcase Indian design and features well ahead of their time. Sustainable material use, low electricity, low waste, travel-friendly, curvature of filter for a unique flavour profile... all the things we never talk about. Somehow the erstwhile SIF got lost entirely in secret grandmother recipes, never quite making it out of that world. Just a little while ago, if you talked to anyone outside South India about this brewer, you'd get a quizzical expression at best.
So Ryan Tag posting an ASMR reel about using a SIF-inspired brewer, to brew specialty coffee with no chicory, and drink it black... well quite frankly, that's music to our ears. That's exactly what we wanted to do - show the world the universe of possibilities with this brewer.
SOFI is unapologetically NOT kitsch. Kitsch is never what we aspired to. SOFI is also not a novelty. It is something you can use everyday, for the rest of your life. SOFI does not sell nostalgia… you know, the kind we see often? About an eat-pray-love kind of India. Yuck.
SOFI is proudly Indian... but is for anyone who loves coffee. For anyone who loves good design. For anyone who believes beautiful looking objects have value. And most importantly, for anyone who believes that something made in India doesn't need to be justified with a feel-good story for why it exists.
What does authenticity mean to you? We’d love to hear in the comments below.
🧠What Piqued Our Interest
We’ve all heard how boomers have hoarded wealth, that news promotes negative headlines (spoiler alert: reality usually is not nearly as dire) and that kindness can equal success, but when NYT bestselling financial author Morgan Housel gives us refreshingly new insights into aphorisms we’ve heard before, it made us take stock.
His Q&A based YouTube video format made for a lovely work break.
Until next time, brew aramse.
Best,
Namisha & Raghunath