Ready-to-serve coffee in the offing

Bangalore, Sep 24 (UNI) Coffee connoisseurs across the country will soon have their hot beverage in a new format -- sachet, with a shelf life of about 30 days.

Filtered coffee concentrate with milk and sugar could be added to hot water and hot coffee could be served in a jiffy, avoiding the complexity involved in brewing filtered coffee.

Talking to UNI here, Coffee Board Chairman G V Krishna Rau said research was in an advanced stage and a match making was necessary between the brewers and few interested parties to take the initiative forward. Soon the product might be launched on a pilot basis in select districts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the main coffee drinking States of the country.

He said that to ensure uniformity, the Coffee Board would soon be introducing a new initiative of transparency seal, under which a consumer could be aware of the contents of pure coffee in blended power. Normally, chicory was permitted to be blended with coffee power under the provisions of law. Though retailers mentioned the percentage of the blend, there was no facility to test the purity of coffee. However, the Board would soon be getting such machines, in vogue in Brazil, he added.

Stating that the domestic market for coffee had not shrunk with the annual consumption being around 80,000 tonnes, he said coffee consumption had infact shown an increasing trend in Karnataka, compared to Tamil Nadu. Besides, with the market dominated by neighbourhood roasters who hardly have the initiative to move to new areas, any major expansion was not possible unless large players come into the picture.

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