Thread by @gauravsabnis

I remember there was a very good south indian coffee online startup here sourcing stuff from kumbakonam or some place very legit. I loved the chicory blast. Took me back to indian childhood coffee.
But murrcan wife @k_rupal & friends were like why does your coffee taste woodish?

https://twitter.com/RaviSachidanand/status/1366059309617012740

I was not as much into food science then. So did not think of chicory being the difference then. But after a few more such rabbit hole dives spurred by "how can @k_rupal and i have the same thoughts on the bizarrest of random things but not coffee?", the answer was chicory!

And this then became a story to use forever in my marketing classes about preference models.

Like that tweet above says, chicory in coffee was not an exotic hipster innovation. It was basically targeted and intelligent contamination. It was fraud. Like milkmen watering milk. 🤣

But we desis got so hooked to that chicory taste that now it is legitimately a premium fancy ingredient. If you're an indian consumer with deep pockets. But I was curious if it would translate beyond desi immigrants like me. Is chicory more than just coffee sawdust? I don't know.

It's not like chicory is horrible to all non desis but it is most definitely an acquired taste. So while it can become a product with a significant enough shelf space to be stocked in retail, I doubt it will ever move anywhere close to mainstream.

Sigh. I miss school. 😭😭😭

The reason I quit a high paying mba track life job and spent half my 20s in a minimum wage PhD in the middle of nowhere was to go back to school. I always loved school. Not once did my mom have to drag me to school. I love talking to people. I miss that. I want it back. 😭😭

These are the kinda streams of consciousness that pre covid would result in coffee chats that led to top publications. Like seriously, my highest cited paper came out of me & fellow rookie Ted Lappas just shooting the breeze about fake hotel reviews and Fawlty Towers.

Ted was like who what when Fawlty what? It was NOT greek to him. 🤣🤣 (Cos he's Greek).
And as anyone who has met me in real life has heard me say at least once, I went "wait, let me show you a youtube video!" And we watched this and laughed

But then we started talking...Hmm..... We only think fake reviewers are targeting overall ratings. But what if they are craftier? What if someone with a seaside hotel is paying people to say they have the best seaside view. Specifically with seaside view customers in mind?

That snowballed into a paper written in less than a month...A MONTH cos of an ISR special issue deadline. Two junior faculty saying what the hell, let's go for it. It sailed through the review process. And won 2nd best ISR paper of the year! Cos coffee.

pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.128…

I once tried to tell Lappas how that paper was like our 2001 Calcutta and I was the Dravid to his Laxman. He gave me the slightly confused lappas look and changed the subject. 🤣🤣
I really need to start finding coauthors who are into test cricket.

So yeah, zoom or online will never be able to recreate such dynamics. Who knows how many papers will never be written because of WFH.