The Bizztro

We need to talk about Coca-Cola, one of the other caffeine sources we reach out for, but it comes with hardly any benefits. Now, I know the story you have been told. A friendly pharmacist in Atlanta named John Pemberton invented a headache cure in a brass kettle, and now the world would like to buy the world a Coke. It’s the American Dream in a bottle! But, as a student of history—and someone…

Hello, friend. If we haven’t met yet, I’m Bhavi Patel. On the internet, I go by Banjaranfoodie, mostly because “Highly Caffeinated Woman Who Reads Too Much and Wanders Off” didn’t fit in the username field. I have a strange job. I straddle the demilitarized zone between two warring factions: Coffee and Tea. By day, I am the Editor of Tea Journey magazine and a writer for international coffee &…

Browse through the internet and you will find loads of blogs, reels, and videos talking about how one should completely avoid refined vegetable oils and use cold pressed oils only instead, for a host of reasons that rang from containing harmful chemicals to being loaded with trans fats. Makes one wonder why cooking oil manufacturers would put in the time, efforts, resources, and money to process…

A bad cup of coffee can ruin the day. So can a stale cup of coffee. Contrary to popular opinion, coffee does go bad, and it does go stale, changing taste & turning over time. How much time, you ask? Now, that would be a product of how the coffee is stored in what form, and a few other factors. There comes a point in all our lives when our coffee no longer tastes like it did when we first opened…

If you turn back a packet of say pasta, frozen meals, salad dressings, energy drinks, sports drinks, baked goods, or meat substitutes, chances are you will find an ingredient in the list called Maltodextrin. Often a part of some juicy controversies, Maltodextrin has such a wide range of applications owing to its capability to serve so many different functions when added to food. Some believe…

When you go to the market to buy packaged milk, be it in a pouch or in a bottle or any other form of packaging, it is highly likely it would be labelled as ‘Pasteurized Milk’. This could be toned milk, double toned milk, full fat or full cream milk, or standardized milk. Why is milk pasteurized? What happens when milk is pasteurized? Is pasteurized milk dangerous? Does pasteurization trigger…

It has been a few years that I switched out my instant coffee for specialty coffee and I haven’t looked back since. Bit by bit, I assembled my coffee gear. I began the journey brewing basic cowboy coffee using pre-ground coffee I would buy from the roaster. Then a friend gifted me a Timemore Small U French Press for my birthday. Then I got me a basic kitchen scale and a thermometer. Then I bought…

What is Feta Cheese?

Greece is a beautiful country in Europe, known for its goat milk and sheep milk. The country is mostly arid and rocky, with very little grassland cover. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, Greece is considered to be the cradle of Western civilization and is also the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major…

Before I get into the details of what is Cascara, I thought let me tell you a story. It was a hot, humid afternoon and I was wandering through the streets of a rather posh neighborhood of Bandra in Mumbai. The heat was exhausting, the humidity was draining me out, the streets were rather narrow, the neighborhood had small, colorful Christian homes, with a shrine of Mother Mary or a large cross…

On a recent trip to Srinagar, Kashmir, like most people, I spent my time driving around Srinagar city visiting the usual tourist spots – the Pari Mahal, the Chashmeshahi, the Nishat Garden, the Shalimar Garden, the Badam Wari, etc. The next day I drove up to Pahalgam – the valley of the shepherds, and from there on to Chandanwari – the last drive-able spot on the Amarnath pilgrimage, the…

Srikanteshwara Temple, Nanjangud, Mysore

Nanjangud – a small town located on the banks of the Kapila (Kabini) river, about 23 km away from Mysuru city in the Mysore district of the South Indian state of Karnataka is best known for the historic temple it houses – the Srikanteshwara Temple, often just called the Nanjangud Temple. Nanjangud is also sometimes called Garalapuri. Dedicated to Lord Shiva who consumed poison that emerged out of…

The Beautiful Beaches of Vizag

My memories of tea gardens

Our movies tend to romanticize the tea gardens a lot. Actors running through the gardens, chasing each other or hand-in-hand, love blooming in the air, and then the sunflowers shaking sometimes. We had a Geography teacher who was from West Bengal and she would tell us a lot about the tea gardens of Darjeeling. The thing I remember the most from her stories was “Dui Pate, Ek Suiro”, meaning ‘Two…

Discovering the BBTC Coffee Varietal

Have I ever told you I maintain a thorough record of every specialty coffee I try in an Excel Sheet? It contains the name of the coffee, the name of the plantation, the name of the roaster, the process the coffee underwent, the roast level of the coffee beans, the tasting notes, and the varietal. This gives me an idea of what I am trying and tasting, and maybe when I get down to it, discover…

Experiencing the Darjeeling Second Flush Black Tea

Darjeeling Tea is one of the most prized and most valuable teas in the world today. It has received a lot of recognition globally for its unique flavor profile and the experience it offers. I have been on this journey to understand and learn more about tea, and it has been so much fun. So, in a previous blog post, I talked about my experience trying the freshly roasted Darjeeling First Flush…

St. Philomena Cathedral, Mysuru

One of the largest churches not just in India but also in the continent, the St. Philomena’s Cathedral in Mysore was second on my list of places I wanted to visit in Mysuru, right after the Mysore Palace. I had first seen this church in the 1977 Bollywood movie Amar Akbar Anthony As luck would have it, the moment I slip open the curtains of my hotel room, the first thing that I could see were the…