Tender coconut: how to choose a good one
Sweet or tangy, more water or more malai: what to ask for.
Why we do not add sugar
Ripe fruit is sweet enough. Here is how we choose it.
In our experience, many juice stalls add sugar syrup to every glass, partly out of habit and partly to hide fruit that is not quite ripe. We decided at the start to add nothing unless a customer asks.
That means we must buy well. Srinivas tastes the fruit at the market before buying a crate. Oranges should feel heavy for their size; watermelons should sound hollow and have a yellow patch where they rested on the ground. Sugarcane should be thick, juicy and not dried at the cut end.
A glass of fresh orange juice already has the sugar of three or four oranges, so adding more is rarely needed. For children, or for sour fruit like sweet lime early in the season, we offer half a spoon of sugar or a little honey, and we tell you when the fruit is tart.
Many of our regulars stopped asking for sugar within a few weeks. Their taste adjusted, and now our juice tastes of fruit to them, not of syrup.
