Category: coffee

2018 Dairies !!

2018 has been a Journey filled with lots of travel Stories. Right From Jaipur to Jodhpur in India to Monoco and Morocco for Work. And not to forget the highlight –  Japan for Family Holiday. 
Culture
Experiencing the Rajasthan culture in India to experiencing the Japanese culture and living the  Moroccan life. 
All these places either had Food, lifestyle or architecture. And these  Culture  became another Journey in itself.
Books worth the Read In 2018. 
Journeys through the books. 
Starting from Exiting West to Landing at the port of Mokha and Many reads in between from open by Andre Agassi to “Killing Commendatore by Murakami  below are the top 5 reads of 2018.
1.Exit West – by Mohsin Hamid  stories of immigrants. 
2.Homo Deus – by Yuval Harari  How the Technology  is collecting data and using it. 
3.Born a Crime – by Trevor Noah A true story of a comedian born in South Africa with a mother being a black and father a white. 
4.Monk of Mokha –  by Dave  Eggers – Story of how The port of Mocha coffee travelled across the international waters.
5.Killing Commendatore – by Murakami
Noteworthy Movies of 2018 
1.Puzzle -How a simple gift of a puzzle changes the perspective of one individual 
2.Crazy Rich Asians – The Big fat Indian wedding going global 
3.Searching – How technology helps track down a father daughter and her murderer. 
4.Ben is Back – A  young drug addict and his mother’s story to come in terms with reality. 
And the Hindi film industry had many movies to choose to watch this year! 
But there a few out there you couldn’t miss at all . 
1.Pad Man by R.Balki was one of the great stories the year began with and continued till Raid, The income tax issue can sometime come as a surprise-Ajay Devgn needs to experiment.
2.Hichki -Though a inspiration from the west.Brought Rani Mukherji Back as a actor and the production house for their content. 
3.Missing the only missing from this psychology thriller was the audience who missed one of the best thrillers of the year.
4.October – Simple stories are the most difficult to tell.And October by Shoojit Sircar was one such story.
5.Beyond the cloud by Majid Majidi -Had the world  take notice of Ishan Khattar as an actor & performer 
Raazi,Soorma,Parmanu,Andhadhun,Badhaai Ho ! And Manmarziyaan were a few movies to watch out. 

Two Adorable Losers Play!!!

Two adorable losers is an upcoming play at NCPA for the theatre lovers and If you haven’t been for a play yet or always wanted to go for one ,this one is for you This is  your chance to come and enjoy the comedy starring Darsheel Safary from ‘Tare Zaamen Par ‘ fame and Abhishek Pattnaik who is not only starring in the play,But has co-written and co-produced it  ,under “Out of the box production “
Two adorable losers is a English comedy about a professor played by (Abhishek Pattnaik) from Odisha who is weak in his English diction and a student played by (Darsheel Safary) who is weak in his academics. Both suffer from the same problem – an inferiority complex. In an attempt to regain their lost confidence, they approach each other in an unusual alliance.
A little trivia about the play- The play is adapted in Odhisha and is many ways an autobiographical tone for the  writer Abhishek Pattanaik  as his parents originally belonging to Odhisha shifted to Mumbai, But having his parents roots in odhisha they would travel to cuttack during his vacation and the observation of livelihood,Mannerism,surrounding and the people around for years later is getting adapted with an already hilarious sounding play “Two adorable losers”that unfolds for all on the 13th of January 2019 at NCPA.
To buy the tickets for the play click on the link https://in.bookmyshow.com/plays/two-adorable-losers/ET00023334

Morocco Travel Journey!!


Witnessing the sunrises almost everyday and everyday it looked different.Yet the day seemed nearly the same.In the past ten days  haven’t really known what day we were living in.Even today when finally home it’s Saturday! A weekend already. 
The free time,Experienced the sunset at souk Mediana & shopped for souvenir, visited the shopping mall and ate dinner at one of my favourite cafe “Paul”until we called it a day! 
The last day that we had,Witnessed the sunrise once again, Visited  Royal Mansour hotel for their   Christmas Decorations. Afternoon went shopping for last moment shopping.And soon executed the impromptu plan for the Atlas mountain journey. It was like going to the Himalayan’s and driving around Kashmir valley snow capped mountain as our view towards the mountains and trees around the side ways leading us towards the mountain one of the craziest evening. Around   sunset when we were all creeping out with the darkness around,After some Moroccan tea & coffee left for Marrakech once again.The whole journey we were all stressed out,Just a couple of days ago tourist were murdered in the region. Visited  the Souk once again for more shopping followed by a dinner meal  at a nice quite place in the heart of Marrakech.The dinner wasn’t  complete without desserts and  coffee  that we enjoyed  post our satisfactorily meal. This was the week in Marrakech,Morocco besides the work.

The Monk of Mokha -Book Review !

The Monk of Mokha is a true story about Mokthar alkhanshali who did many odd jobs until one day when a lady asked  #Mokhtar have you seen the statue across the street?  and she was surprised he had never seen the statue. 
That’s a statue of Yemini dude Al Shadhili  known as the monk of Mokha. drinking a big cup of coffee, she told him. 
That’s got to mean something.May be this is your thing.You’re 25.Pick a direction for your life.
And thus began the journey for Mokthar and Port of Mokha. But it wasn’t easy and all the struggle during the civil war in Yemen is narrated and the final escape from Aden to US to exporting the grounds is nail biting.Just like as if you are reading a thriller.
Trivia:
1.Port of Mokha – Was  the primary point of all coffee grown in Yemen.
2. 2014 mokhtar became the worlds  1st Arab Q grader of arabica coffees.
3.Q Grading program :The Q grader program was first launched in 2004, It’s six full days of intense training.The certification is useful for purchasing coffee, selecting roast profiles and production/processing methods, understanding coffee origins, and more.
4.In 80 years it was the 1st time coffee left from the port of Mokha in Yemen during the civil war 
5.As of spring 2017 farmers replaced 17,000 qat plants with Coffee trees.
6.The 1st container of 18,000 kg of port of Mokha was sold out across 4 continents in 45 days.
7. February  2017 -Coffee review awarded port of Mokha’s haymah microlat 97 rating the highest score issued in the publication 20 years.
8.The first coffee house was called Qahveh Qahveh

Reading reality!

Reading as a hobby could be such a pleasure,You can  always learn about places,Culture,People,psychology of people and while you are idle, your  mind is imagining all that’s written. And what if you end up in the country,You have read so much about?Have you ever wondered about the same ? Would you have a sense of familiarity or moments of Déjà vu? 
For me as a reader,I have enjoyed reading Murakami books a lot right from the first book I read of his “colourless tazaki “to the most recent read “Norwegian wood.”May be because his stories are slightly eccentric or because he is a writer based in Japan,And there has always been a fascination for me as there is so little we know about the Japanese. And since Japan is the backdrop for all his stories the curiosity remains. 
I read Norwegian wood last month.A book who’s inspiration is from the Beatles song Norwegian wood (This bird has flown )this was  Post my visit to Japan about six months ago. And when I started reading the Norwegian wood 
And as I kept turning the pages of the book,While reading. I sensed being in Japan and it wasn’t my imagination that was going wild,But a sense of reality that I was living in. I enjoyed reading the book even more because may be the perspective had changed as I had already travelled to Japan and could now relate to the place,People and culture even more than ever.