This local roastery has its roots in Indian culture

Just a quick update from me: We’re expanding our reporting team and you will soon be meeting our new fellows. With more people writing about New Jersey’s South Asian community, you’ll see an expansion of what we cover as well as more frequent updates!

A passion for coffee, born in the land of chai

The first time I ordered coffee beans from Happy Cat Coffee, the Pennsylvania-based online business run out of Sukhi Bedi’s garage, it arrived with an anise-flavored biscotti from a local bakery.

The second time, I tore through the box to find my cookie—a Pavlovian response that has made my monthly order of Colombian Decaf the most thrilling cardboard box that arrives on my doorstep.

“It goes back to chai [tradition]. You got to have something to dunk it with. You got to have your Parle-G,” Bedi, an Indian American, says when I ask him about the free biscotti he tucks into each package of coffee beans ordered by his small but loyal customer base.

Happy Cat Coffee thrives on word of mouth: Bedi is known for the freshness of his roast. He gets the coffee to your house within a day or so of roasting it to perfection in his own garage, and he insists that coffee tastes much better when it’s fresh. Launched in 2019, the coffee company gives Bedi a way to fund his passion for coffee and share it with others.

While South Asians are notorious chai drinkers, Bedi’s passion for coffee is very much about tradition. He was first initiated to the bean in India, when his father’s work took the family to South India, where coffee is the preferred drink for many and where it naturally grows. Bedi also loves the tradition of savoring your hot beverage, rather than taking it to go.

At The College of New Jersey, where he works in IT, he is known around campus as “the coffee guy.” Walk by his office, and you might see him tamping espresso into a portafilter to pull a shot for a coworker. It always goes into a ceramic mug—never a disposable cup.

“If you’re serving something as old as eternity, you want to do it right,” Bedi says. “The flavor retains well in a ceramic mug. You don’t taste the papery-ness from cardboard. And, it shows you care. I’m not just giving you espresso, I’m trying to make a connection, and I care about you.”

Technical brew

When I ask Bedi why he spends his day with technology rather than coffee, his answer surprises me: Coffee and IT have a lot in common.

Bedi loves to tinker with his roaster. He sources different beans and roasts them to different levels. He’s learned that a Colombian Dark Roast is perfect for espresso, because the bitterness balances well in milk. He knows that Ethiopian Yirgacheffe tastes the way it does because of the elevation, soil and humidity of where it’s grown. The flavor can vary from dark chocolate to earl grey depending on how you roast it.

“I sometimes bite the bean,” he confesses.

As when he is helping a coworker troubleshoot a computer problem, Bedi likes to spend time with the machine—the roaster, in this case—making adjustments and playing around until he’s able to achieve the desired outcome: a satisfied customer.

“It’s natural for me to try to connect with people and help them troubleshoot. I play around with the roast until I’m satisfied with the result,” he said.

Growing perks

During the pandemic, Bedi expanded his business considerably. Neighbors would stop by and ask him about the smell. As he put it, “When you’re roasting, the whole neighborhood knows it.”

He got serious about the company, made a logo and thought he was on his way to $100,000 in annual sales. That didn’t quite happen, but he’s happy with the level of growth he’s achieved. He likes being small enough to focus on the quality of his roast.

Still, when the business scales, he imagines opening a small space—part roastery and part coffee shop. He tells me about an optometrist who has a café two doors down from where he sees his patients.

“That would be my retirement thing,” he says wistfully, “Have a little café with samosas and biscotti.”

Happy Cat Coffee is named after Sukhi’s cat. You can follow him and the cat on Instagram @happycatcoffee.rocks.

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