‘‘Okay, it's just coffee, but people love drinking a lot of it, so why not brew coffee to the best of its potential?'' is a question that Marc Tormo keeps asking everyone.
Having come all the way from Barcelona and settled at Auroville in Tamil Nadu, this ‘Indian by choice' is really in love with everything that makes a cup of perfect coffee.
And the Spaniard was in Kochi recently to brew some hot cuppas for a lounge bar opened at the Cochin international airport.
Marc first came to India as a tourist in 1992 and on a permanent basis in 1997. Ask why, and the answer comes thick and fast, ‘‘Being a coffee connoisseur, settling down in India makes a lot of sense as it helped me master every single process in coffee making.''
Marc has been to several coffee estates across the country and really taken by the beauty of these shade-grown plantations unique to this country. The process made him realise that the finest of the coffee beans grown here are often exported in green form.
In 2008, he established Marc's Coffee, an effort to promote fine Indian coffee in its own market. ‘‘I wanted to change that conventional notion of sugar and chicory and serve people the best grade coffee,'' says Marc, who now plans to own a coffee estate somewhere in the country to complete his ultimate Indian coffee experience.
Having worked as a coffee consultant for numerous hotel chains, he has to his credit the introduction of a unique branding technique called ‘roast and taste.' ‘‘We do have places where we roast coffee while customers are given the opportunity to come and see the process.''
The focus is on making fine coffee from high quality beans, freshly roasted and freshly ground and bringing to your table with no hurry in small batches, he adds.
He is equally excited about the Indian coffee culture getting bigger and better. In Marc's view, India has developed a niche for the dark liquid with a thick aroma, thanks to the advent of multinational brands that popularised the experience of coffee as an over-the-counter affair, especially among the urban youth.
According to him, the even better thing about developing a stronger domestic market is that this will also ensure value-addition and employment generation.
He observes that the sector now needs to take this zest for aroma, depth, and flavour to the next level by attracting business investments to it and introducing alternative brewing techniques. ‘‘I am here to call entrepreneurship — to identify potential entrepreneurs and help them establish a brand,'' he says.
To complement the efforts, Marc has developed a holistic approach that proposes connecting the value chain and allows everyone in the industry to reap the benefits.
Among his next projects, Marc plans launching a coffee brand dedicated to promoting organic and ‘fair trade' coffees from India. For, he believes that ‘‘there is no other better service than to offer fine coffees to people that connect with the same spirit.''
Marc Tormo from Barcelona is now an ‘Indian by choice' to master every single process in coffee making.
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