Fresh, balanced, and beautifully roasted.
A home-roaster’s journey — brewed in curiosity, steeped in learning.
Why Ko•Ho is the question many have – Well, its inspired, touched and always dedicated to Blissful Bubbles of my existence – my kids. All our (Me and my beloved wife’s) worlds rotate around and move through these tiny human beings. So, we named our small ventures after our small world.
Honestly, I named this venture of mine bubble bliss (Exactly) before Ko•Ho! Literal translation might be difficult based on which script is used to translate. It loosely and poetically (Way of Haiku poetry) translates from Japanese to “bubble of blissfulness” in simpler English. – Naming sorted!
My run through the Specialty Coffee so far; I did not come to coffee through a belief system. I came through curiosity — and I stayed because of people.
Most coffee literature will tell you about ratios, recipes, extraction windows, and the correct declining rate of rise. I read all of it. I still do. But when I am brewing — I keep the dose consistent and let everything else find its own way. The simplest recipe is usually the right one. Complexity in the cup does not require complexity in the method.
What genuinely interests me is the space between what a coffee is and what a person tastes.
People sometimes taste the same notes in a coffee but describe them differently. They are not wrong — the notes are there. Their vocabulary, or perhaps their palate, is differently calibrated. I also think that a complex recipe and a very stringent brew sequence can sometimes push the brain to find notes that may not be organically present. I do not like to push coffee that way. I prefer to let the coffee do the work and be enjoyed as it is.
I have seen the same coffee give the same person a completely different experience — simply by changing one small variable. That is what I find endlessly interesting. Not correcting people’s palates but finding the small adjustments that help someone taste more of what is already there.
I do not think Indian coffee needs to prove itself against Ethiopian or Colombian benchmarks. It needs people willing to taste it on its own terms — with the same patience and curiosity they would bring to any other origin.
That is what I am trying to do with each coffee through my roasting journey.
I became a home brewer during the Covid restrictions. Being an electrical engineer by profession — a good one, by the industry’s measure — I got curious about the machinery used to brew and started researching. Each brew method led somewhere new. The curiosity did not die down.
In the meantime, I had quietly got my family members and office colleagues addicted to coffee. They literally gathered around to watch a pour over being brewed. My monthly consumption reached approximately 4kg of roasted beans — and that is when I started exploring roasting.
I bought a small batch roaster to fulfil my own requirement — fresh beans for daily cappuccinos and afternoon office pour overs. A 500g electric roaster from a manufacturer in Gujarat who was himself just starting out. I was one of his very first customers.
I went into full DIY learning mode. It has been over two years of building this — slowly, not always consistently, but always present. But every weekend I fire up the roaster — to learn something, and to craft quietly enjoyable coffee. Not necessarily exceptional. But always a reflection of my choices during the roast. That is enough for now.
