The rise of Chennai’s coffee roasters
The Hindu
The past year has seen a spurt in speciality coffee offerings, as more local roasters get creative with the business of beans
When Divya Jayashankar set up Chennai’s first roastery, Beachville, back in 2018, the city was just beginning to look beyond traditional dark roasts and filter coffee. Back then, her imported small-batch roaster, grinder, and farm-sourced coffee blends with “no chicory, no robusta” were enough to take customers by surprise, she recalls.
Now, encouraged by adventurous customers, Divya is exploring naturally sun-dried coffee cherries as against washed Arabica, and the various ways they can be put to use. The latter, she says, “has what many consider to be a cleaner taste. But sun drying lets the flavour of the cherry leech into the bean with time, making it much more heavy-bodied and fruity: The market is moving towards more funky tasting coffees, and I want to experiment.”