Last issue we noted that Indian roasters seem to send washed coffees dark and save their light roasts for naturals and ferments. Someone had complained about exactly that on r/IndiaCoffee, and the catalogue turned out to agree with them. One fortnight of data proves nothing. Two is worth writing down.

Of the 21 washed coffees added this fortnight, ten are medium-dark and two are dark. One is light. Run it the other way and the answer holds: of the seven new light roasts, three are naturals, two anaerobic, one experimental, one washed. Two different cuts of the same catalogue, one result, and the same result a fortnight ago.

So if you want a washed light roast from an Indian roaster, the directory says you are choosing from a short list. Both the light roasts and the washed coffees are filterable, so you can check that yourself rather than take our word for it.

14  Curious Life Coffee
8  Dancing Goat Coffee
5  Naivo Coffee
5  7 Elements Coffee Roasters
4  Caarabi Coffee

Every name here was already listed. Last fortnight was the opposite: almost all of those 225 coffees arrived attached to roasters joining for the first time. This is the ordinary rhythm, existing roasters cycling lots.

The Bean Co Roasters

Kolkata, West Bengal

The only roaster to join this fortnight, and the first from West Bengal we have listed. Kolkata sits roughly 1,800km from the nearest growing region, which is the pattern we described last issue: the roastery follows the customer now, not the crop.

Founded by Amandeep Singh Agand. The range covers single-estate Indian coffees and blends, plus barrel-fermented lots finished in whiskey, wine, brandy and rum casks. There is Araku Valley, Mysore Nuggets Extra Bold, monsooned coffees, capsules and cold brew, and a separate arm supplying cafés and hotels.

Someone asked which hyped coffee people had bought and then disagreed with. The longest reply was about Blue Tokai's Attikan Estate: a drinker who bought it regularly last year, rated it among the best they had had, ordered it again this month and found it simply bad. Co-ferments took most of the rest of the criticism. The interesting part is what nobody said. Nobody said the coffee was wrong for them. They said it had changed. Holding a lot steady batch after batch is harder than producing one good batch, and much harder for a buyer to check before paying.

A new three-cup Bialetti owner asked how to cut the bitterness without spending much, and got one of the kinder threads of the fortnight in reply. The fixes that kept coming up: pour it over ice, follow James Hoffmann's moka recipe, level the funnel with the flat of a knife rather than tamping it, fill to just under the safety valve, and cut the flame as the brew rises instead of after it finishes. Two bean suggestions came up more than once: Fraction 9's sweet blend, and Hunkal Estate's Aranya Gold, or their 80/20 if you are drinking it with milk.

What did it actually cost you to start brewing at home?

The line that kept coming up on r/coffeeindia this fortnight was that not everyone can afford a fifteen-thousand-rupee machine. True enough, and also not quite the question. A moka pot, a South Indian filter, a press and a hand grinder will all get you brewed coffee for a fraction of that, and the threads above are full of people doing exactly that. Somewhere between those two numbers sits the figure that actually stops people, and we would like to know what it is.

Hit reply with what you started on and what it set you back, gear and first bag both. We will publish the range next issue.

If you are still choosing, we wrote the long version of this in choosing a first brew device. For the bag half, the coffees under ₹1,000 are one place to start.