By Pothen George
Well, we are just beyond the halfway mark of this year’s Master’s Program…it’s all downhill from here. To date, the Class of 2016 have concluded 5 exams and they still have 3 exam papers to write and 4 more written exams to take before going home and starting on their thesis.
And despite the heavy load of lessons and exams, there are a few students who had the time to write a blog post to share with us their adventure with coffee. One of these adventurers is Pothen George (aka Ashwin) from India.
So, without any further ado, here below are the words of Pothen and how he discovered his love for Coffee.
And despite the heavy load of lessons and exams, there are a few students who had the time to write a blog post to share with us their adventure with coffee. One of these adventurers is Pothen George (aka Ashwin) from India.
So, without any further ado, here below are the words of Pothen and how he discovered his love for Coffee.
My name is Pothen and I’m a fourth generation Coffee and Rubber planter from India. Originally from Kerala, but brought up in Tamilnadu. I first heard about the Master’s Degree in Coffee Economics and Science indirectly from Mrs. Anna Illy Jr.
My love for Coffee first began when my aunt gave me my first cup of the traditional South Indian ‘filter kaapi’ (grown at our family plantation) at the tender age of 12 . This was given to me after a long and exhausting day in the frenetic city of Mumbai. I not only enjoyed the immediate invigoration by the beverage, but also the sweetness. I was hooked. Little did I know then, that this passion would lead me more than a decade later westward to the distant shores of Trieste, Italy.
I enjoyed the drink intermittently for the next couple of years, but it wasn’t until I was preparing for my public exams that I seriously began drinking the elixir in order to give me the energy and concentration to study. This coffee was made in the south Indian filter coffee way. I used to smuggle the decoction of coffee concentrate every week into my boarding school along with milk powder and sugar. I already possessed an ancient kettle which I used to heat up the water before adding the milk powder. Like most traditional boarding schools in India, tuck of any sort was prohibited and to my dismay, my milk powder (since it was sweetened) began to be pilfered. So, the simplest solution that I arrived at was to start drinking it without milk/milk powder (the equivalent of an Americano). Everything was hunky-dory for a while as far as my coffee was concerned, but then the unthinkable happened. Our school’s U-19 cricket team lost the tournament and the head of our school decided to crack down on our apparent tardiness. The dormitories where we stayed were raided, our meager tuck was confiscated (including my sugar) and our puritanical headmaster decided to cut out the electrical sockets for good measure since he, in his infinite wisdom ordained that ‘ALL electrical equipment made us lazy’ (no, he was not Amish). So, for the remainder of my tenure in boarding school, I had to drink my south Indian filter coffee, with cold water and without sugar.
Fortunately, while I was doing my undergrad, I was able to evolve and make my coffee HOT through the drip method.
By the time I was doing my Post Graduation in Agricultural Business and Plantation Management, I was a raging Coffee addict and my appetite for the beverage was close to insatiable. It must be noted that I drank a blend of Arabica and Robusta from our plantation, which was made extra strong due to the South Indian Filtration system. It was while I was doing the Post Grad course that I realized that I had the golden opportunity and the means to turn my passion into my profession. I was already a budding Coffee planter, but I now wanted to get involved in the entire process; from production of the bean to the cup of the ultimate consumer. It was at this point that I started becoming totally ‘coffee-centric’ and began attending Coffee Entrepreneurial programs, conferences and numerous coffee workshops. After I finished my Post Grad, I knew that I still had a long journey to become a self-actualized Coffee Entrepreneur and while I was discussing my future plans with my cousin, who’s an international Coffee trader he advised me to do the Master in Coffee Economics and Science –Ernesto Illy in Italy. I had heard of the Illy Company during the Indian International Coffee Conference at Bangalore and decided to try getting accepted into the Masters Course.
My love for Coffee first began when my aunt gave me my first cup of the traditional South Indian ‘filter kaapi’ (grown at our family plantation) at the tender age of 12 . This was given to me after a long and exhausting day in the frenetic city of Mumbai. I not only enjoyed the immediate invigoration by the beverage, but also the sweetness. I was hooked. Little did I know then, that this passion would lead me more than a decade later westward to the distant shores of Trieste, Italy.
I enjoyed the drink intermittently for the next couple of years, but it wasn’t until I was preparing for my public exams that I seriously began drinking the elixir in order to give me the energy and concentration to study. This coffee was made in the south Indian filter coffee way. I used to smuggle the decoction of coffee concentrate every week into my boarding school along with milk powder and sugar. I already possessed an ancient kettle which I used to heat up the water before adding the milk powder. Like most traditional boarding schools in India, tuck of any sort was prohibited and to my dismay, my milk powder (since it was sweetened) began to be pilfered. So, the simplest solution that I arrived at was to start drinking it without milk/milk powder (the equivalent of an Americano). Everything was hunky-dory for a while as far as my coffee was concerned, but then the unthinkable happened. Our school’s U-19 cricket team lost the tournament and the head of our school decided to crack down on our apparent tardiness. The dormitories where we stayed were raided, our meager tuck was confiscated (including my sugar) and our puritanical headmaster decided to cut out the electrical sockets for good measure since he, in his infinite wisdom ordained that ‘ALL electrical equipment made us lazy’ (no, he was not Amish). So, for the remainder of my tenure in boarding school, I had to drink my south Indian filter coffee, with cold water and without sugar.
Fortunately, while I was doing my undergrad, I was able to evolve and make my coffee HOT through the drip method.
By the time I was doing my Post Graduation in Agricultural Business and Plantation Management, I was a raging Coffee addict and my appetite for the beverage was close to insatiable. It must be noted that I drank a blend of Arabica and Robusta from our plantation, which was made extra strong due to the South Indian Filtration system. It was while I was doing the Post Grad course that I realized that I had the golden opportunity and the means to turn my passion into my profession. I was already a budding Coffee planter, but I now wanted to get involved in the entire process; from production of the bean to the cup of the ultimate consumer. It was at this point that I started becoming totally ‘coffee-centric’ and began attending Coffee Entrepreneurial programs, conferences and numerous coffee workshops. After I finished my Post Grad, I knew that I still had a long journey to become a self-actualized Coffee Entrepreneur and while I was discussing my future plans with my cousin, who’s an international Coffee trader he advised me to do the Master in Coffee Economics and Science –Ernesto Illy in Italy. I had heard of the Illy Company during the Indian International Coffee Conference at Bangalore and decided to try getting accepted into the Masters Course.
July 20, 2015 will be a day that I will always remember. It was on this day that I was informed by Andrea Appelwick (one of the amazing trio of the Master’s Staff) that I had been granted a scholarship to do my Master’s course at Trieste, Italy. Needless to say, I was overjoyed: 60 lecturers from all over the globe, who are the best in their field and studying with some of the brightest minds of my generation from similar backgrounds from all the coffee producing countries in the world. I was sure that this was going to be an epic course. There are 24 of us in this edition of the Master’s program, living and studying together this amazing experience. We are different in so many ways, with so many different cultures, backgrounds and experiences, but we have one thing in common, that is our enormous love for coffee.