Experiments in specialty coffee and fine cacao flavour profiles.
Introducing our latest custom bars featuring Subko coffee’s meticulously sourced beans from Chikmagalur and our delicious Idduki cacao. These bars truly highlight the role that farm-level processing plays in the flavour profile of a raw ingredient – both the bars have the same ingredients from the same origin but exhibit their own unique flavour notes, all because the coffee was processed differently at the farm!
Extracting fine flavours from different origins, fermentation and farm processes is something we love exploring at Mason & Co – these bars are the first time we employed similar techniques and practices to coffee and love how the bars have turned out!
Subko roasts small batches of meticulously sourced 100% Arabica coffee of different coffee fruit varietals (including the S-795, Cauvery and 5B). They source from across various coffee estates and growing regions in India, identifying the minority of specialty farmers working to revolutionize coffee processing in Karnataka (India’s traditional coffee growing belt) whilst also exploring newer coffee producing states like Tamil Nadu, and Meghalaya in the North-East.
Soon, Subko hopes to source from beyond India to develop a truly ‘regional’ brand representing Asia exclusively, starting from within the Indian Subcontinent; Nepal and Myanmar are on its radar. It’s name is a play on words afterall, SUBKO: ‘from the subcontinent, for all.’
For this special partnership with Mason & Co, Subko embarked on an experiment at both the farm and roasting levels. Subko utilized one lot of 100% organic coffee from one of its direct trade partner farms – Tat Tvam Asi Estate – which was processed with two distinct methods to experiment with how each would interact with our single origin cacao: one part of the lot with a ‘natural’ process and one part with a ‘washed’ process.
The ‘natural process’ beans were roasted with a unique profile best suited for 65% cacao while the ‘washed process’ beans were roasted with a profile that ended up complimenting 75% cacao. Notably, the ‘natural process’ ended up giving the 65% chocolate bar an incredibly cherry and green apple profile as a result of the natural dried method wherein the coffee remained within its own fruit casing. Combined with our cacao, this naturally emulated an old school childhood favourite in the Indian subcontinent: blackforest cake!
Both bars are unique and are intended to be consumed together so the varying flavour notes can be compared and appreciated. These bars are available exclusively at Subko (If you live in Mumbai, you can order them online or take-away from the cafe), and coming soon to Bread & Chocolate in Auroville!
This is the first of a series of limited edition dark chocolate with coffee using Subko’s beans.
Subko Specialty Coffee Roasters and Bakehouse is at its core, committed to an ideal: to help reimagine and reinvent an unlikely origin – the Indian subcontinent – as a legitimate contributor to the global specialty coffee and craft baking movements.
Subko aims to fulfill this goal with four key pillars: Specialty Coffee, Craft Bakehouse, Sustainability, & Design and Creativity.
Subko’s flagship roastery and bakehouse – launched on 15 March 2020 amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic – was designed through a months-long restoration and conversion of a 1925 Goan bungalow nestled in a quiet bylane of Mumbai’s trendy Bandra West neighborhood.