It is going to be a long post but please do bear with us as we have a lot to share and tell.
When we started Pagdandi more than 8 years ago, we wanted to create a place where one could go, lounge in a comfortable environment, and have a cup of good adrak chai. It also made its way into our name as we wanted to communicate our intention around the same. Having said that we have always been split between our Chai and Coffee drinking habits. In fact, we have never really understood the Chai vs Coffee wars. I mean, why choose when one can have both? Both have their own place in our lives depending on the time of day, weather, mood, and state of mind. While we were proud of the chai we served from the get-go, we admittedly did not explore our espresso and the derivative coffee beverages to their maximum potential. 8 years and hopefully worst of the pandemic behind us we decided that we must fix this. We would love to be part of the growing coffee culture in India and count ourselves as one of the places to go to for an excellent cup.
Presenting our all-new “Nuova Simonelli Appia Life”, made by one of the oldest coffee machine manufacturers from Italy. We are so excited about this new addition that despite not having consumed any coffee, we kept awake late in the night with anticipation of it! We researched over months, travelling to multiple cities, meeting, and talking to coffee machine salesmen and baristas of leading cafes. Consulting friends and industry experts over months to finally arrive at our decision to purchase this beauty. From boiler capacity, pre-infusion interval, steam wand pressure, and group head temperature control we have poured through the spec sheets for hours before zeroing in on this beauty. We also struck gold in finding a sparingly used workhorse of an “Anfim SP II Coffee Grinder” with a similar pedigree as the Simonelli, equipment that some say is even more important than the brewing machine. Now the machine is only as good as the people using it. We are putting ourselves through long hours of rigorous training and as with every skill, lots of practice to perfect the art of extracting that oh so perfectly balanced liquid gold, espresso shot! While there are a lot of brewing methods, we are currently focusing on espresso as it’s the most versatile and the only method where the coffee tastes like its aroma. Offering different brewing methods and choice of beans is a place we want to be in and are planning to do in the future. Another ongoing step is to find the beans that would lay claim to our house blend. Optimising our longstanding relationship with the only Fairtrade certified coffee company in India, @BlackBaza is going to be the most satisfying part of this journey. Knowing that every cup of coffee we make with their beans is directly impacting the small coffee growers is extremely fulfilling to the values Pagdandi wants to stand for. Under their expert guidance and with numerous cupping sessions under the belt we are now able to serve the most responsible and tasty cup.
As we move our menu to serving great food with high-quality ingredients, serving one of the best coffees in the country is now a mission of ours. And we want to do this while cutting through the jargon and arriving at the most enjoyable cup as per your taste preference. We invite you to be a part of this journey as we experiment, falter in between, and then pick ourselves up, so that with your feedback and support we can eventually succeed in it. A wise person once said, “Life happens, Coffee helps”. If you come in and order a Coffee beverage, we would love to know if ours did!? 😊
