Making a vegan dal makhani

I’ve been annoying my flatmates lately. Every time we begin talking about places to go eat, I pull up my phone in nostalgia and show them photographs of food from a beloved eatery back home. It takes something special to be a restaurant revered by locals and tourists alike. Jodhpur, my hometown, boasts a number of palaces, each with its own rich history. To me, one stands out — not because of its stature as a former royal residence, but for its food: Bal Samand Lake Palace, home of the greatest dal makhani you will ever have.

Living in London, I’ve never quite had a good dal makhani. (Yeah, I’ve been to Dishoom.) I don’t know what it is, nobody has been able to live up to Bal Samand’s version. And it only got worse when I went vegan — this is a dish big on dairy.

Anyway, my weeks-long craving for dal makhani finally came to a head today. I’ve been trying to find the wildly aromatic urad (black gram) dal you need for this dish, but no British supermarkets stock it. Luckily, I found a local international grocer that blew me away. Alongside bags of rice enough to feed half an Indian wedding (that’s saying something) and the MDH spice mixes I grew up with, there was an array of practically every lentil and bean used in Indian cuisine. Even the black urad was available in three sizes (at least).

I gathered the ingredients needed and set out to recreate my Bal Samand memory. Over the past year, I’ve really been getting into food science and trying to use it to my advantage when cooking, so resources like Serious Eats and America’s Test Kitchen are go-tos. In March, I discovered Krish Ashok’s brilliant book, Masala Lab — essentially J Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab for Indian cooking — and ever since I finished reading it, stalking his Twitter and YouTube for tips on Indian food has been a regular activity.

Through him, I also discovered Your Food Lab’s Sanjyot Keer. His nine-minute video on dal makhani is comprehensive and a compelling watch for anyone fascinated by this dish, its history, and how it differs from maa ki dal.

I washed and soaked the dal the night before. You usually need an overnight soak, but I was making my dal for dinner, so I let it go longer. It’s incredible how the black gives way to the green in the dal. The grains are practically unrecognisable from their soaked counterparts. And the best part? Their dormant fragrance seeped into the water, lending it that characteristic dal makhani aroma.

I put on some London Grammar and began cooking the dal in a standard stock pot, bringing it to a boil and leaving it to simmer. I didn’t put any salt in because I was using salted vegan butter in the dish. I did add some spices, as Ashok recommends. Black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon (a Ceylon bark because it’s the best) and a bay leaf. And for the life of me, I don’t know what role bay leaves — especially dried ones — play.

But I despise having to fish out spices once they’ve done their bit. Bay leaves are fine, but cloves? Not happening. So I fashioned a makeshift bouquet garni with Aeropress filters and coriander stems. I didn’t have a thread, and I knew if I used a herb stem, it would have to be one that goes with Indian cuisine, and, particularly, this dish, since it would contribute towards the flavour of the dal. Hence the coriander.

It wasn’t pretty, but it worked!

I didn’t use the rajma (kidney beans) because I didn’t have any. I had some leftover cooked black beans I planned on adding to the mixture directly. I know that’s not “authentic”, but authenticity in food is a sham and please move on. In the end, the beans actually slipped my mind — and I discovered I prefer a beanless dal anyway.

The technique for the tadka is to use pastes for your aromatics. The more you break them down, the more flavour they release. I was only making two servings, so blending half an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, a bit of ginger and a few chillies would 1. not be feasible and 2. be a nightmare to get out of the blender (I don’t have the small spice grinder Indian households do.) So I decided to mince my way through them, getting them as fine as I could. Storing my onions in the fridge and using a sharp knife have kept my tears at bay.

I did puree the tomatoes though (in my case, a can of chopped tomatoes and some tomato paste) because the gravy needs to be completely smooth. That went into the pot with some turmeric and chilli powder. The idea is, you reduce everything into an aromatic tomato paste, which you then mix the dal with.

You can either add the dal to the tomato mixture or vice-versa. I prefer the former, because that way, the water with the dal helps deglaze the pan and mop up all the fond collected at the bottom. I layered this with some cumin, coriander powder, and amchur (dried mango powder), as Ashok does.

They’re not the finest, but did the job.

So, the vegan bit. Dal makhani essentially means buttery dal. So using vegan butter was crucial — and London, thankfully, is rich in variety there. I got a block-style butter (which is weird to me, because in India, salted block butter is usually the only butter you find), and it happened to be salted. There will be a day when I make a vegan white butter — the secret ingredient that elevates every Punjabi dish — but for today, this sufficed.

I added the butter in two stages. The first was when I mixed the tadka with the dal. I left that cooking for about an hour, which is when I worked in more butter, to help it finish off with that classic buttery flavour.

The other dairy component is cream, which is mixed in at the end, off heat. Coconut cream/milk is out — that will make it taste like coconuts and ruin all the hard work. I’d have loved to use oat cream, but my local store only had soy, so I went with that.

I tasted it just out of curiosity — I’ve been pushing myself to taste everything I cook with. It had the mildest flavour of soybeans, but had a thick mouthfeel and was surprisingly white in colour. Honestly, it worked out really well. I also didn’t know how much cream to add, so I checked a few recipes and found a common amount. I’m a stickler for following recipes to a T, but Indian cooking is very much the antithesis of exact measurements, and I’m trying to learn to let go of that.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that plant-based dairy has a long way to go, and butter and cream substitutions don’t taste the same. But I sacrificed that when I made the decision to go vegan anyway. Plus, fermentation-based dairy — using yeast to mimic dairy molecules that render milk that is vegan but not dairy-free — will soon be a thing, and all your prejudices would go away.

Traditionally, dal makhani is cooked on a tandoor for hours on end, which helps the dal develop that wonderful smoky undertone. I don’t have access to the equipment to do that. And I couldn’t do the dhungar method, which involves placing a hot piece of coal over the dish, pouring ghee over it, and covering the pot. My smoke alarm — and, consequently, flatmates — would be pissed if I did that.

So I did the next best thing. Liquid smoke. A few drops added 10 minutes before finishing meant it wasn’t too strong, neither too muted. And oh, while shopping for ingredients, I’d found my local supermarket started stocking smoked garlic, so I used that at the beginning.

I also plopped in some sugar with the liquid smoke. Just like you add salt to most of your baked goods, you should add sugar to your savoury dishes. It’s all about the balance. Ashok recommends using gur (jaggery). But I didn’t have it on hand, so I used muscovado sugar (khandsari in Hindi), which is a close cousin and of which India happens to be the world’s largest producer. This was followed by a sprinkle of garam masala and kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves).

That was it! I topped it with some coriander because I, fortunately, genetically love it. I was going to serve this with naan, but by the time I started cooking, it wouldn’t have had enough time to rise — and I didn’t want to do a baking powder-leavened naan. So I (unsuccessfully) attempted some garlic butter laccha parathas, because duh. They complemented the dal wonderfully.

As for the dal makhani itself, it exceeded my expectations. I’m not going to say it was the same as Bal Samand. Of course not. But it came pretty damn close. I think I added too much cream, and in hindsight, I should have poured it bit by bit, tasting as I go. Lesson learned.

The lachha paratha turned out to be more of a serrated paratha with garlic butter.

When I make this again, I’d use fewer tomatoes — maybe around half a can — so the flavour of the dal shines more. And I would probably do away with the turmeric, which makes it taste a little like rajma (kidney bean broth). The smoked garlic didn’t work. I think its subtle, oak-smoked flavour is meant for dishes where garlic is a major component, not a mere building block.

But the vegan butter really shone through. It made the dal taste buttery in the best way, even if the butter didn’t taste like its dairy counterpart on its own. Also, isn’t seeing cubes of butter melt when dropped in a hot dish just an absolute delight?

I’m not foolish enough to attempt to write a recipe here. There are people way more knowledgeable and experienced than me to do that. I’m just here to share my experience and hopefully help inspire you to experiment in your kitchen. I’m a vegan Indian who grew up eating the best dal makhani in the world, and all I did was try and replicate it in a very non-traditional way.

It did make for an almost-perfect Saturday evening. The only things missing? Family, paneer tikka, and Bal Samand’s bonfire. But the dal took me home anyway.

Profile: James Hoffmann on his career, talking chains, coffee preferences and Brexit

“I had a new employer, they’ve invested in me, they sent me for training, and I made it to the finals,” says James Hoffmann, sporting his unmissable custom-made, tortoise-shell round frames. “Everyone’s looking at me and I’ve just made a dick of myself.”

It was the 2005 World Barista Championship, he had just put his cappuccinos down, and the judges were horrified. “I wondered what happened,” he recalls, shaking his head. “Then, there’s this warmth of cappuccino oozing into my lap. It’s that feeling of public failure.”

Two years later, Hoffmann was the World Barista Champion.

James and I at Prufrock Coffee for the launch of the second edition of his World Atlas of Coffee.

He has a tall, towering figure, with silver fox hair and the goofiest smile in the world. I tell him it’s a struggle to describe who he is. He smiles, then hesitates. Hoffmann is the author of the World Atlas of Coffee, co-founder of Square Mile Coffee Roasters, a director at Prufrock Coffee, a blogger, and a YouTuber. “Most of my time is about trying to turn what is happening in coffee in general into condensed, useful information to help people make better decisions,” he says.

The second edition of James Hoffmann’s The World Atlas of Coffee is launching tomorrow. To help celebrate there will be a bunch of fun stuff going on over at Prufrock, we recommend getting over there and joining in the fun. pic.twitter.com/2NyhhofZGP

— Square Mile Coffee (@squaremile) 3 October 2018

As a pioneer of Britain’s third-wave coffee movement, Hoffmann, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn’t like coffee from the big chains. He calls Pret a Manger’s filter “the single worst cup of coffee you can buy”. Likening his outlook on Starbucks with his impression of America, he says, “I love it when I go there, but at the same time, it sickens me.

“But actually, I’m totally down for, like, a good Frap,” he admits. Hoffmann is 39 and incredibly articulate, but his tone alters to that of a Generation-Z teenager when talking about Frappuccinos. “Come on, dude! Hot day, little Oreo in there.” I look at him, disappointed. “I — look,” he pleads his case. “I’m human, I’m wired to like fat and sugar.”

Growing up in the Lake District, Hoffmann lost his father when he was seven. His stepfather, “a classic baby boomer-entrepreneur”, was a crucial mentor to him. He started in the wine industry, but hated its “nepotistic, self-serving” nature. He then worked as a croupier in a Leeds casino, before moving to London as an espresso machine salesman at House of Fraser. (He now develops machines with espresso giant Victoria Arduino.)

Hoffmann demonstrating the Black Eagle, the espresso machine he worked on with Victoria Arduino. Photo: The Coffee Magazine/YouTube

“I didn’t drink coffee at this point, but I started reading about it. I learnt to like its taste, and got obsessed,” he says. He “fanboyed hard” after Norway’s Tim Wendelboe won the Championship in 2004, and still counts him as a huge influence. (They frequently collaborate now.) He also looks up to Intelligentsia’s Geoff Watts, Counter Culture’s Peter Giuliano, Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson — third wave’s Big Three — and has collaborated with Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck.

He mainly drinks filter coffee, prefers washed processes over natural, and gravitates towards paper-filtered pour overs. He isn’t a big fan of the Chemex, explaining, “The papers are really thick. The dual effect is that you have a tiny bit more paper taste, and it’s easy to get a weird airlock. The paper sticks inside the funnel, which stalls the brewing process.” He favours flash-brewed iced coffee over cold brew. “I can taste oxidation in most cold brews. I like brewing it hot and then icing it immediately,” he says. “It’s fresh, cold and refreshing, as opposed to something more muted and with slightly off notes I don’t enjoy.”

“Chemex paper filters are really thick. The paper sticks inside the funnel, which stalls the brewing process.”

“If I’ll only get coffee from one country for the rest of my life, I’ll pick Colombia. It has a really broad spectrum of flavour,” says Hoffmann. “You can go from super heavy, chocolatey things up north, down to jammy, fruity things in the south, or the kind of crisper, more citric coffees of Nariño.” Having travelled all over the world, he holds Australian and Japanese cafe cultures in high regard. But he has never been to Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. I try goading him about it, but he cuts me off. “I know, don’t even start!”

He anticipates that a hard Brexit will be devastating to the coffee industry, and could result in lower quality — but more expensive — coffee as well as the closure of many cafes. He describes himself as an “open-borders guy”, pointing at a wall map next to us. “It’s ridiculous that you’re not allowed to walk over these imaginary lines we’ve invented. It’s a big rock of space floating around; who cares?”

He previously struggled to achieve a work-life balance. “I fell for the myth that if you’re not working, you don’t care about your business,” he says. “That’s bullshit.” Constantly chasing for something, he has never been satisfied. “I’m slowly accepting that I’ll always be slightly disappointed in myself.”

Though he’s still be working with coffee in the future, Hoffmann confesses his uncertainty about staying in London full-time. “I’m from a green place, and part of me misses that.” But one thing is for sure: with a man-crush on Donald Glover and tastebuds insured for an entire industry, his YouTube attempts to try the most peculiar coffee beverages from across the globe (“Because then, you don’t have to!”) will always make for hysterical viewing.

 

No more lattes? Climate change threatens livelihoods of coffee and dairy farmers as arabica risks extinction

What if you never get your morning flat white again?

With the coffee and dairy industries in peril due to climate change, that could become a reality, affecting the livelihoods of more than 1.25 billion people worldwide.

 

Photo: Anay Mridul

2018/19 is projected to be the biggest year for coffee production ever. But 60% of wild coffee species are under the risk of extinction, including coffea arabica, which amounts for about 60% of the total coffee grown globally. “The consumer is not seeing the threat currently,” says Henry Clifford, a coffee exporter at DRWakefield, “since prices are low due to the massive glut in production.”

Jean Zuluaga, Head of Imports for the Organisation of Spanish Coffee Producers, explains how crops are affected. “If we overproduce in the soil, we have to stabilise it. If we don’t give anything back to the soil, how are we going to recover it?”

The relation between current and future (2050) coffee suitability and altitude of coffee (coffea arabica). Figure: Laderach et al (2011)

He says importers have to look farther away to bring coffees in because of the rise in temperatures. “We see a lot of plagues in the coffees we receive, and we have to decline them because we can’t work with those types of coffees.”

Zuluaga’s brother is one of the 25 million coffee farmers whose subsistence can be disrupted by climate change. Without stringent action, the global area suitable for growing coffee could be cut by half by 2050. This will result in the global coffee belt expanding away from the Tropics. Zuluaga repents this, branding coffee production as a means of survival for farmers. “It’s not a business, it’s their livelihood.”

The top 20 producing countries, lying on the global coffee belt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Fairtrade revealed that arabica production will rise 300m to 500m higher above sea level by 2050 to mitigate losses. Here, Clifford breaks down the phenomenon:

The coffee industry has close ties with the dairy sector, which is home to around 1.8 million cows in the UK. But extreme weather conditions have taken a toll on their production capacities. Heat stress is a critical issue, according to Ed Towers, a dairy farmer at  Lune Valley’s Brades Farm. “The perfect temperature for a cow is between 14°C and minus 10°C, because they have trouble bearing heat.” This is why heat waves like last year’s are detrimental to the production of milk.

Dairy cows. Photo: Farm Watch/CC

Extreme weather conditions affect their daily work. “Your weather window is either massive, and nothing’s growing because it’s too dry,” says Towers, “or tiny because it’s too wet and there’s only a couple of days of dry weather.”

Towers is a strong advocate of animal agriculture, especially with the needs of the growing global population. He sees it as “taking foods that are not nutritious enough or are undigestible for humans, and turning them into the highest digestible stuff fit for human consumption.”

He believes that climate change will have a greater effect on the non-dairy sector. Alternative milks have been on the rise for a long time now; oat and almond milks had a fourfold year-on-year growth in 2018. It’s a prerequisite for every coffee shop to offer plant-based milks.

We don’t add sugar to our oat drink, but we do add some vitamins like A, D, riboflavin, B12 and calcium to keep things modern and cool for everyone–especially our vegan friends living rad plant-based lives. pic.twitter.com/eDllCSk6hG

— OatlyUK (@OatlyUK) February 19, 2019

“There is a lot of land you can’t grow crops on. Crops like oats can’t move to areas that are more favourable for growth, whereas a dairy farmer can buy food from other farms to feed the cows,” explains Towers. “If there is desertification or drought, then crop farms can’t actually produce anything.”

He commends vegans for their efforts in changing buying habits. “That’s consumers using their money to drive a change,” he says. “The enemies are the people who don’t care and buy just the cheapest product.”

But the system won’t work if everyone turns vegan. For example, once oats they are milked, they’re then fed to cows. As ruminants, they digest byproducts unfit for human consumption, and turn it into high-quality, nutritious milk. “That’s why we need both animal and non-animal agriculture systems, otherwise, it doesn’t work,” reiterates Towers. “Pulling a piece out breaks the puzzle.”

Addressing the glass bottle solution, Towers explains, “There’s the carbon cost of producing, recycling and reusing it, which is the climate side of it. But if the product doesn’t break down ever, it’s a big pollution problem.” The CO2 cost for glass is higher than plastic, and it needs to be washed and reused at least seven times to be more sustainable than two-litre bottles.

Glass milk bottles aren’t the best solution, according to Towers. Photo: Wes Schaeffer/CC

Many economies depend on coffee export, and climate change presents a major challenge. “If supply decreases, who will support all the over costs?” Zuluaga asks, irate. “The coffee we drink in Europe depends on those poor third-world countries that produce it as a means of survival.”

Bodies like the National Federation of Coffee Growers in Colombia and ANACAFE in Guatemala have taken measures to facilitate producers. “They provide a model of sustainability and how to combat this,” says Clifford. “It would be good if more countries, created bodies like that.”

“Apart from climate and carbon taxes, costs need to be more linked to the carbon and methane costs of production,” argues Towers. “The products that are actually bad for the environment are going to cost a lot and be less economic.”

Career-Ending Injuries, Rifts with Civil Services and An Eternal Love for the Army: Everyone should read this Major’s story

“I don’t give in. I always get up and walk… Another billion lifetimes, I’ll always come right back to the forces.”

Major MS Jamwal has lived a life with no regrets. Read his moving story to find out how a life-threatening injury forced a change in career paths, and why there is friction between the Indian Army and the Civil Services.

“I was always out proving things to myself.”

Born in Jammu in 1963, a time of political turmoil around the city, and having lost his parents at the age of four, Major Magdeshwar Singh Jamwal had a tough childhood. He lived with his elder brother, he grew up in an army household. “It got imbibed in us. We could sense it and feel it,” he says. He holds the army in high regard, calling it “a beautiful place”.

As a youngster, Major Jamwal excelled at sports and academics. He passed out from the National Defence Academy in 1982. Photo: Major MS Jamwal

“I couldn’t live the way I dreamed of living. And that, nobody can take out of you, the kind of person you are.”

It was July 15, 1984. Major Jamwal was struck by a career-ending accident, followed by decades of treatment for numerous injuries. But he has no qualms talking about it. “I suffered an injury,” he says, before I even finish my question. As a peacetime soldier, he was doing a unit job that day. He suddenly met with a horrific accident. “I collided with the side of a Matador,” he recalls, referring to an artillery tractor with a seven-ton winch. He was in a coma for about a month, and a sub-comatose state for another two.

Major Jamwal collided with the side of a Matador on July 15, 1984. Photo: Alf van Beem/CC

Here are the effects of his injuries, which subsequently resulted in a dozen surgeries in ten years:

• Osteomyelitis: A bone infection in his right femur.
• Urethral Stricture: A narrowing of the urethra, which made him unable to pass urine easily.
• Compound Fracture: A major fracture in which the bone pierces through the skin. As a result of infected nails, he suffered from a malunion in his thighbone, causing internal rotation and shortening. This led to one leg being shorter than the other.
• Head Injuries: These led to further rotations, and the bone could not be healed properly.
• Hemiparesis: The right side of his body was left considerably weakened.

He kept working in the administration unit between his trips to the hospital. “I was trying to discover and invent things. I used to limp around, trying to find ways to exercise,” he tells me, sitting with a straight back. “I couldn’t do it. I was very frustrated at times. I was not happy serving. There was a point when I realised I’m not working properly, I’m not leading from the front, so I quit.”

Major Jamwal left the army with whatever benefits he could get. “You receive the full pension after completion of service. I got half of that, because I put in only ten years of service,” he says. Until now, he has maintained a composed character, unperturbed by questions about his injuries and his struggles. All that changes when I ask him about the cases of pension-related problems in the Indian army.

He has not received his Pension Payment Order for almost 12 years now, since the Sixth Central Pay Commission of 2006. “Every time a Pay Commission comes, the pension has to be recalibrated and re-evaluated. Civil bodies implement all the orders, deciding and directing the bank on how much pension to pay,” he explains. “The government officers are inefficient; they don’t process things properly,” he adds.

Major Jamwal emphasises the need for honesty in the system. “When you govern, you need to know the job properly. There are bad hats in the army too; we all have our deficiencies and shortcomings. The army can’t save you from that, but it’ll train you in a manner that you will become a better person,” he says. “There is so much corruption in the system. Our country is in a bad shape,” he adds, questioning the government’s moral fibre.

 

#AeDilHaiMushkil is an Indian film with Indian actors & crew except 2 Pakistani actors. By obstructing it’s release you harm your own film.

— Harneet Singh (@Harneetsin) October 14, 2016

 

I remind him of instances where officials have strongly supported the army, with calls for banning the role of Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in 2016’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and boycotting a cricket match against Pakistan amidst ceasefire violations. He cuts me off, reiterating, “And they all still take them for a ride. The government officials can’t do a thing about it; they can’t change the system. Unless they are efficient, they can’t govern the civil services.”

“You’ve got to be very smart, very clever, very quick, and I am none of those.”

The former Major says he would not have done sedentary jobs for the army, explaining, “I will not be able to do justice to my job, because I have mental deficiencies. I can’t concentrate for very long; I have a very short memory span. That’s why I can’t work in an organised setup. That’s why I left the army.” Grateful to just be alive, the father of two adds, “Everyone stood by me, and I have a beautiful family.”

“I have a beautiful family.” Major Jamwal can’t help but smile as he talks to his daughter. Photo: Anay Mridul

He believes heroes must exist in society. “Unless there are heroes, life gets meaningless. They have to be there in our minds.” Amongst his heroes is the army, which he feels indebted to. “I didn’t work much, but the returns I got from the army, they’re tremendous. They outweigh my work, anytime,” he says. You have to admire the man’s honesty.

“I just suffered an injury.”

Having tried his hand at school management and real estate, he has finally established a tourism company, Mountain Trails. He has found pleasure in his job after all those years of struggle, a welcome reminder that the show must go on. I commend his hustle and never-say-die attitude, to which he says, “I don’t give in. I always get up and walk. I was independent right since I’ve been a child.”

I ask him if, after all that happened, he regrets joining the forces. He laughs in disbelief. “I just suffered an injury,” he says casually, before asking me to punch him hard on his eight-pack abs. He proudly adds, “Another billion lifetimes, I’ll always come right back to the forces.”

Coffee Tasting: The Starbucks Experience

Starbucks has always been a home for coffee aficionados. From Caramel Macchiatos to Java Chip Frappuccinos to single-origin pour-overs: Starbucks has it all.

But its coffee is about much more than just different beverages. Every Starbucks coffee is carefully crafted to extract the best flavour possible. Each roast is tested in the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room before being launched. Once in the market, Starbucks baristas, or ‘partners’, can host their own coffee cuppings. A coffee cupping or tasting is performed to observe the different characteristics of brewed coffee. Here is a look at one such cupping of one of Starbucks’s most famous roasts.

The Original Starbucks Store in Seattle, opened in 1971. Photo: Calvin Hodgson/CC

1912 Pike Place, Seattle is the address for the first Starbucks store ever. It still has the same appearance and ambience as it did all those years ago, in 1971. In honour of its legacy, the coffee we tasted is the Starbucks Pike Place Roast.

The Starbucks Pike Place Roast, introduced in 2008.

Every partner receives the Starbucks Coffee Passport, a database for various coffees and the ultimate guide to coffee tasting.

Coffees are categorised into three profiles, based on the way beans are roasted. A medium roast, as this coffee is classified,  is “balanced with smooth and rich flavours”, the Coffee Passport explains. There are three primary coffee-growing regions in the world, “each with a distinct landscape, climate and flavour profile”. The Pike Place Roast originates from Latin America. The coffees from here boast “crisp acidity with flavours of nuts, cocoa and soft spice”.

Coffee processing is done to remove beans from their surrounding cherries. This roast belongs to the Washed Processing method, which “increases the coffee’s acidity and gives it a clean finish”. Introduced in 2008, it is described as “well-rounded with subtle notes of cocoa and toasted nuts balancing the smooth mouthfeel”.

Pike Place Roast: Our signature medium-roast with a smooth, balanced & rich flavour. Drop by at a Starbucks near you & try! #pikeplace pic.twitter.com/uYaTDoFmkM

— Starbucks India (@StarbucksIndia) May 21, 2017

The first step of cupping is to grind the beans. A French Press requires coarsely ground coffee for proper brewing.

The beans are ground at a coarse French Press setting.

After grinding, the coffee is transferred into the Press, and hot water is slowly poured over it. The aim is to wet all the grounds so that the water mixes evenly with the coffee. The appropriate brewing time for a cafetière is four minutes.

Once the timer rings, the coffee is slowly plunged inside the container, isolating the grounds from the brewed coffee.

There are four steps of coffee tasting. Smell, slurp, locate and describe.

You smell by cupping your hand over the coffee and inhaling, as “your nose can detect thousands of smells”. The slurp is crucial, as allows the flavours to reach the mouth’s various tasting zones. Four core characteristics of the coffee are located.

The first step of tasting coffee: to smell.

First, the Aroma, or the way it smells. Liam McCombe, Coffee Master, described the Pike Place’s smell as ‘chocolatey and smokey’. Next is the Acidity, which is the tanginess of the coffee. This roast’s acidity was found to be on a medium level.

The third feature is the Body, described as “the weight of a coffee on your tongue”. Another Coffee Master, Mariestellar An, called the medium-bodied coffee “easy to drink”. Finally, the Flavour: the taste of the coffee, described by the baristas as possessing caramelly sweetness and notes of chocolate, with cedar wood-like richness.

Slurping, a crucial stage of coffee cupping.

The fourth step is describing one’s experience from each of the previous stages. It also includes pairing the coffee with a food item, which can either be “similar to the coffee”, or “wildly different” to bring out the flavours, according to Mr McCombe. In this case, the coffee was matched with a zesty Lemon and Poppyseed Muffin.

The Lemon and Poppyseed Muffin by Starbucks.

For an in-depth look into coffee tasting and the processes involved, see my story on Steller, The Art of Coffee Tasting.

Mr McCombe broke down the finer details of coffee tasting, explaining why coffee is smelt and slurped, and what locating it means. He urged people to “taste [coffee] from everywhere” to get the best out of the world of coffee.

Series: Influences

Like everyone else, I have always been motivated by example. I have looked up to people, as role models, as idols, as inspirations.

I have a poster in my room, a collage of eleven people who have shaped who I am today. These people are from different backgrounds and professions, but all have been successful in life, for what they do and who they are. I believe that everybody needs influences. And an influence can be anything, a person, a song, a show, a book, a movie; anything at all.

So I decided to share with you some of my own influences, and why they have inspired me to become my current personal and professional self. Over a series of posts, I wish to tell you how I have been motivated by life in every aspect imaginable.

This is my first article series, so I hope you like it. I invite and encourage you to share your own influences as well, and what they mean to you, down here in the comments section. I can only hope that by the end, we all share some mutual influences.

Let Go

There are times when you feel like you need to just let go. Let go of everything. The memories. The emotion. The crying. The laughing. The negatives. The positives. The people. The thoughts. The words. The life. You know what, then? Let go.

You need to let go of the OCD, because you just cannot bother about keeping the right thing at the right place every single time. You need to let go of the neatness, because you can’t help but be messy. You need to let go of the person you’re trying to be, because you are just so tired of trying, and constantly failing. You need to let go of caring about what people say, because you are so sick of it that it fails to trouble you anymore. You need to let go of the pressure, because the heat is on, the dish is done and the cooker’s ready to whistle. It’s okay. Let go.

You want to travel to places you have always dreamed of going to, because they remind you of a part of yourself you never knew existed. You want to step aside from the limelight, because the luminosity is giving you a headache. You want to move away from the world and be alone, because let’s face it, you are awesome and what better company to have than that of oneself? You want to read books and drink coffee all day while sitting in the rain and destroying those plates of fries, because you want to get to know yourself. You want to listen to your favourite playlist and sleep for as long as you desire, because you want to enjoy the gentle pleasures of life. Guess what? You can. Let go.

Discover yourself, because no one is more important than yourself. Be selfish, because no one is more important than yourself. Treat yourself with your favourite food, because no one is more important than yourself. Rid yourself of all the guilt, the dispiriting musings and the negative emotions and give yourself a break, nobody deserves it more than you do, because no one is more important than yourself. Live your life the way you want, and love the life that you live, because no one is more important than yourself. Let go.

You are the most important thing in your life. You are your best friend. You are The One for you. You are who you want to be. You are the best. Life is short, but it is your job to make it as long and worthwhile as possible. You know what they say about life, right? Always pick a short, adventurous one over a long, monotonous version. Well, guess what? You are the tool that can make your life both adventurous and long. Let’s do that. Let’s go. Let go.

Bring ‘I’ ahead of ‘you’. Why? Because it’s your life. Live it your way. Do what you love, and love what you do. Make time for the absolute pleasures of your soul. You live but once, and make the most of what you have. Love yourself first because you know what? It’s time. Let go.

MUNs and Wikipedia: Busting The Myth

As I write, the world of Model United Nations grows larger and larger by the day. Having Sec-Genned a conference myself, I cannot help but notice the notion that has surrounded everyone associated with MUNs: how Wikipedia is something not to trust when it comes to researching.

Before you explode, hear me out. I am not saying that Wikipedia should be used as a source in itself. No way. That’s about the worst thing you can do. One should never quote Wikipedia as their primary source for data. Instead, they should refer to the citations that the website provides with its data. What I am saying is that despite this, not using Wikipedia altogether may not be wise. Again. Hear. Me. Out.

First: the infamous ‘Wikipedia is editable’ myth. Can I just say, no. Wikipedia has a strict policy to handle vandalism. What is vandalism? In the website’s words, “Vandalism is the proper name for any malicious edit which attempts to reverse the main goal of the project of Wikipedia. The wanton removal of encyclopaedic content, or the changing of such content beyond all recognition… [without] verifiability [or] original research, is a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia. Abusive creation or usage of user accounts and IP addresses may also constitute vandalism. Vandalism is prohibited.”

Essentially, vandalism is the spamming of an article. So how does Wikipedia detect it? It patrols recent changes, “using the recent changes link to spot suspicious edits”. It also checks the edit history of an article “for any recent suspicious edits”, and compares it with “the version after any previous revert or cluster of non-suspicious edits”. According to the website, “This method can check many suspicious edits at the same time. The article size, as given in bytes, usually increases slightly with time, while a sudden large decrease may indicate a section banking.” ‘Suspicious edits’ include those performed by IP addresses (which can be found using various websites), red linked, or clearly improvised usernames. For more information on Wikipedian vandalism, visit the official page.

To cut a long story short, Wikipedia is not really editable. Any incorrect edits are changed by the editors, administrators or software of the website. “Editors can patrol changes as they happen, monitor specific topics of interest, follow a user’s track of contributions, tag problematic articles for further review, report vandals, discuss the merits of each article with other users, and much more. What are felt to be our best articles are awarded “featured article” status, and problem pages are nominated for deletion.”

Featured articles are ‘locked’ and cannot be edited by any anonymous person surfing the web, which is done to prevent vandalism and spam. They can only be changed by Wikipedia editors. On the contrary, most articles are not locked, and hence can be vandalised, which is where Wikipedia steps in.

The verifiability of a Wikipedia article means that information on the site can be traced to a reliable source. “Wikipedia does not publish original content. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you’re sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it… All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed.“

Wikipedia does not publish its own research. It compiles research from all over the Internet right into a single page, which means that no information is unauthentic as Wikipedia does not write its own content, thus dismissing the question of false data invention. To know more about reliable and unreliable sources, refer to Wikipedia’s Verifiability page.

Since humans cannot do everything, robots assist them. An Internet bot is a “software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet.” Wikipedia boasts 2,035 bots to manage its 41,083,343 English articles. These bots, among other tasks, actively carry out incorrect edits. “In many cases, the vandalism is automatically detected and reverted by a bot. The vandal is always warned with no human intervention.” These bots can rectify obvious changes, while complicated edits are sent to editors for review.

How does Wikipedia combat vandalism? Apart from bots, “Wikipedia has a special page that lists all the most recent changes. Some editors will monitor these changes for possible vandalism,” which is called the recent changes patrol. The website also bans or blocks people “who have repeatedly committed acts of vandalism from editing for a period of time, or sometimes indefinitely. Vandals are not blocked as an act of punishment – the purpose of the block is simply to prevent further damage.

Wikipedia also uses an “abuse filter” extension, which uses regular expressions to detect common vandalism terms.” It has also “experimented with systems in which edits to some articles, especially those of living people, are delayed until it can be reviewed and determined that they are not vandalism, and in some cases, that a source to verify accuracy is provided. This is in an effort to prevent inaccurate and potentially damaging information about living people from appearing on the site.”

Now: let’s get out of all the technicality, and finally talk about associating Wikipedia with MUNs. Articles relating to worldwide organisations and global issues are sometimes ‘featured’. For all the articles that are not featured, the above-mentioned techniques can be used to detect vandalism or false content. As these articles are globally important, they are always on the watchlist. Using Wikipedia for your research is therefore not a sin, and, if you actually think about it, is quite beneficial.

Always remember, though: Never cite Wikipedia as a source. That is where you are wrong. As mentioned in this article, Wikipedia does not “publish original content”, and hence, it cannot be used as a source. To find the source of that information, refer to the citations accompanying the information or statistics. Those are the real sources. So, you would be completely incorrect to use Wikipedia as the backbone of your research in a conference. It is, therefore, essential to be careful of how you use information from Wikipedia.

But all this does not suggest that Wikipedia is not trustworthy or reliable. It merely advocates caution while studying data for your agendas. So use Wikipedia in your MUN research as much as you like, as long as it can be backed up by a reliable source. Do not follow the myth against Wikipedia.

Happy researching!

10 of the Greatest Closing Lines in Literature

English literature has always amazed us with its calibre of turning simple words into beautiful sentiments. It has left us with sentences full of deep connotations and myriad emotions. What strikes us the most is how we end a book. The way the author finishes their piece of magnificence has a lasting impression on us. Many define books by virtue of their closing lines. So let us retrospect and admire some of the most iconic last words in literature.

Love

Love. The best thing we do. It is not a sentiment. Nor is it an action. Love is a motion ingrained deep inside that drives us to dare and dream, and succeed and achieve. Love finds us paths we never knew existed. It takes us through roads we never had the courage to go by. It fights for us in ways we never expected anyone would.

Love is unpredictable, perennial and immortal. We lose trust in it. We stop experiencing it. We stop believing in it. In fact, we start hating it. But it is ceaseless. Love is unending. That’s the thing about love: the more you want to distance yourself with it, the closer it gets to you. You may not always feel it, yet it is perpetually there, in the backdrop, biding its time.

Love is like a beast. It can rip you apart. It can destroy your heart. It can destruct your faith and belief system. It can break you.

Yet, it remains the only thing that can fix you and build you back up. It can reconstruct your trust, and make it stronger than ever before. It can create beautiful moments, and give you indelible joy.

It will disappoint you. It will let you down. It will kick you away. But at the end of the day, it will always come back, make you happy and be forever loyal to you.

Love is not logical. It does not have to make sense, and nor does it. It is nonsensical. Idiotic. Pure. When it does befool you, it drives you. It drives your emotions and your actions. It blinds you, even when your eyes are wide open, and blindsides you, even when you are in your complete senses. Love is strange. But just so you know, having weird thoughts about it is a virtue. Absurd minds are what constitute geniuses. At the same time, love opens you to new horizons and introduces you to experiences previously unknown to you.

But here’s the best part about love: it is limitless. Boundless. It keeps you going, it gives you hope, it inspires you. Love to me is not a concept or an idea. It is something much, much more, beyond explanation: ineffable. Never lose hope when it comes to love. You may not be a silly romantic, but I am a hopeless idealist in love with the idea of life, but with undying hopes about love. That is the kind of paradox that love is. It delights you when you are desolate. It charms you when you are disgusted. It thrills you when you are bored. It is insane. It is silly. It is life.

Love is forever. So no matter what you do, live life lovingly. Live on love. Live for love. Love life. And most importantly, love love.

Because love is the best thing we do.