World’s first cold-smoked coffee is here, thanks to this Bengaluru brand

A cup of Ol Smoky.

There are two kinds of coffee drinkers. One who find every coffee similar and the other who can passionately tell a fruity coffee from a cup of winey notes. If you belong to the latter, here’s something you should know. Bengaluru-based Maverick & Farmer has just launched what they claim is the world’s first cold-smoked coffee - Ol’ Smoky.

True to the name, it is smokey in flavour and pleasantly so, devoid of bitterness. It’s got a nutty smell, a hint of spices, tropical notes and a smooth mouthfeel. It’s best had black but the milky coffee is quite as good as it is light.

Dark-roasted coffee beans also lend a sooty taste, so what makes Ol’ Smoky unique? We ask Ashish D’abreo, who runs this coffee brand and two self-titled cafes in Bengaluru and Delhi along with Tej Thammaiah, a third-generation coffee farmer, and Sreeram G, the head of brand operations and advertising. It's the same trio who ran The Flying Squirrel chain of artisanal coffee earlier.

Ol Smoky by Maverick Farmer.

D’abreo, a coffee roaster and barista, begins, “Ol’ Smoky is mellow and smokeish yet not bitter and we were able to achieve this delicate balance with cold-smoking, a process that’s otherwise associated with the meat and fish.”

So how do they cold-smoke the coffee and how different is it from hot-smoking? The latter refers to cooking the food while flavouring it with smoke, from a fire that’s placed alongside.

The process of cold-smoking, however, is passive as the source of smoke is kept far from the food. Thammaiah, who manages his family’s Ajjikutira estates in Coorg, explains, “We place the freshly-picked, green Arabica coffee beans in a closed room and introduce smoke inside it through a hole – for 13-14 hours straight. The source of the smoke is the fallen trees and leaves that we collect from our estate and burn them outside the room.”

Founders of Maverick & Farmer, Sreeram Gangadharan, Ashish Dábreo and Tej Thammaiah; Pic by Pavan Srinivas.

As a result, these coffee beans embody the smoke as well as flavours from the firewood, ranging from the jackfruit to orange, guava and even coffee tree. But the founders, who are in their 40s, aren’t picky about the firewood per se. “We use what’s available in the estate, and, of course, it should enhance the coffee. For example, the teakwood doesn’t pair well, so we don't use it,” says Thammaiah, who converted one of his bungalow rooms on the estate as the smoking chamber for this coffee.

Arabica coffee beans used for Ol' Smoky.

Unlike the 10 existing blends on their menu, Ol’ Smoky is a limited-edition coffee - about 150 kilos of it has been produced. It’s part of the six micro-lots they have created for 2020 to experiment with coffee, something that they plan to do year after year.

Tej Thammaiah's family estate in Pollibetta, Coorg; Pic by Pavan Srinivas.

Ol’ Smoky is already out, so is Orange You Curious? (orange juice-fermented coffee). Milk and Honey (lactic acid bacteria-fermented coffee) and the rest three will follow in the coming months. These ‘maverick’ coffees will be sold only through their website reaching you in two days if you are in Bengaluru and double the time or more if you are stationed outside, after roasting it to your liking. They wanted to retail at select cafes and weekend tasting sessions as well but given the current state of F&B, it looks unfeasible, they say.

The idea to do a cold-smoked coffee hit them two years ago. D’abreo recalls, “We knew our customers enjoyed smokiness in their coffee but how could we do that delicately, without the unpleasant bitterness coming in the way? With that question, we looked up the Internet for references to cold-smoking the coffee. We found zero references and that got us excited to experiment.” They moved to Thammaiah’s estate in December of 2019 with more clarity and started smoking small batches of Arabica beans with different firewood and techniques and conducting blind tastings. They locked in on the right flavour this February, knowing little that a virus would throw their business plans off.

Test roasting each batch.

But they are back in action. “We’ve sold 25% of our Ol’ Smoky batch in two weeks! We have had orders coming from Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and even Visakhapatnam. One client liked that the Arabica's acidity comes through it, one was reminded of the Laphroaig whiskey. Some would like us to heighten the smokiness,” D’abreo shares while not ruling out the possibility of bringing Ol’ Smoky back, maybe making it spicier next year or inducting it in their cafe menu later.

And will cold-smoking set off a new trend in the coffee world? D’abreo says it’s too early to comment but a lot of coffee roasters have been ordering Ol’ Smoky. “People who like black coffees tend to move away from bitter notes with time. So they may want this going,” he says while Thammaiah feels “the hankering for new products will remain.”

Barkha Kumari is a journalist based in Bangalore.