Kalmane Koffees

Kalmane Koffees has long been a favorite hangout of mine. It’s the only place in a mall, I’ve found where you get excellent filter coffee without the sugar premixed in (I loathe sugar in my coffee).

So, when I got an email saying that the Kalmane Koffees in VR Mall had just undergone a makeover, and would I like to come and take a look, and try out their coffees, I jumped at the opportunity.

As soon as I walked into the place, I saw the place had changed. Bright, airy, and open, it was really inviting. My eyes went straight to their wall with giant pictures of their coffees displayed. I also loved their bench-style seating, with colorful throw pillows as backrests. What a good use of space!

They also have regular seating options as well.

The ambience
The ambience

The place is small but everywhere I looked, there was clever use of the available space making it look bigger than it actually is.

Their menu though is in direct contrast to their size. There were so many types of coffees available.

Just some of the types of coffee available
Just some of the types of coffee available

Usually, I just go for their Premium filter coffee, which is served nice and hot in a tumbler (in the traditional Southern style),and that’s what I started with this time as well. I added a plate of samosas to go with it.

Filter coffee with samosas
Filter coffee with samosas

The samosas were tasty, but what really stole the show for me were the fabulous potato-cheeseballs.

Cheeseballs
Potato-Cheeseballs

Actually, the blogger table was a bit divided over the samosas and the cheeseballs – one set preferring the samosas and the other, the cheeseballs. Frankly, I think both are equally good, it just depends on what you are in the mood for at the time.

We also looked around the place and talked to the employees finding out about the different types of coffee beans they have. Their coffee beans are sourced from Chikmagalur (about 250km north-west of Bangalore) where they have their own estates.

Divine smelling roasted coffee beans
Divine smelling roasted coffee beans

The barista carefully went over the different types of coffee beans they have available, and how their various blends were made.

You can pick from blends such as Peaberry, Madras Filter, or Mysore Maharaja. Of all the coffees I sampled that day, the Mysore Nuggets coffee – an all-Arabica one was my favorite (apart from my Premium filter coffee, of course).

They have a variety of cold coffees, and milkshakes also available.

We ordered two different ones for our blogger table.

The Oreo-licious was out of this mind delicious.

Delicious oreolicious
Delicious oreolicious

At first, I was hesitant to try this drink as I’m not fond of the sickly-sweet taste of Oreos. However, I found the flavor in the milkshake pretty mild, and I quite enjoyed the drink.

Strawberry goodness
Strawberry goodness

I drew the line at the strawberry one though. It would have been just too much cream and sugar at one sitting.

In spite of the makeover, the prices stayed reasonable. Coffee prices these days can be quite outrageous, but Kalmane Koffees still managed to keep their basic coffees reasonably priced.

So, we all sat there gulping multiple cupfuls of coffee (it’s that kind of place, very easy to simply lounge there working or chilling with friends), until I suddenly realized that we had spent almost three hours there. Thankfully, I had nothing much planned for the rest of the day, so a few of us hung around some more doing some damage at the shops in the mall – got the cutest dinosaur sweatshirt for my son from H&M, and a lovely canister for myself from Muji, also a lot of window-shopping at Kama Ayurveda but no buying (the prices kind of scared me away).

We all then retreated to Cafe Noir to rest our feet for a bit, for more food and drinks, and a little gossip 😊 .

Overall a fab day!

4 comments

Add Yours
  1. Priya -Tabula Rasa

    I only recently discovered Kalmane Koffees. We were led to it by the smell of coffee, we could smell it miles away! I love the many flavours they offer, traditional to fancy, but am still a bit disappointed in the concentration of coffee. It was quite lightly brewn. Cinnamony, but light. :-/

Leave a Reply