Fika

06/13/2026

🖌️ Introducing Weekly Event at Fika • I like to call it Quiet Creative Mondays. It’s my ritual to start Mondays slowly and mindfully — as I find the energy around is a bit more fast paced and serious than usual. If you feel the same and if you like an opportunity to slow down in quietness — i welcome you to my humble peaceful studio to share the space with me and fellow creatives who think like us.

It is a free event. If you like, you are welcome to buy drinks and food pairing from my regular menu for that Monday. I may have a special tasting menu curated just for this event. But no pressure in buying anything. Limited indoor seats so RSVP is mandatory. For more information: Visit https://www.climatewave.coffee/coffee-people-connect

Looking forward to sharing silence & smiles with you while creating our arts together!

Coffee People Connect is a series of coffee events hosted by professionals in the coffee industry. The events are designed for everyone who loves coffee, and it is where coffee lovers get together for change-making conversations and stories. Join us with curiosity and excitement. Life is short, and....

05/26/2026

💚 I love socialising with people, especially art lovers, artists, mindful folks, and coffee people. Social media is okay, and maybe it’s good for staying in touch with people far away, but no online app can come close to connecting in person.

That’s why I’ve always loved hosting events. I’ve been hosting coffee and sustainability-related events for the past few years, but I took a long break after getting so busy with Fika. Now that I’m finally in sync with Fika’s operations, I’ve resumed hosting events at Fika!! Starting with this one, with many more to come. This was one of the big milestones I was talking about yesterday!

And some of the events, like this one, will be happening indoors! SO EXCITING!!

First coffee event after a long time:
Standart Silent Reading Club

When:
Thursday, May 28, from 6 PM

Where:
Fika, 1329 Cook St

Ticket:
$10 per person, includes a specialty coffee (caf or decaf), kombucha, or a non-caffeinated drink

I like to keep it small:
Max 8 people per event

How to book:
www.climatewave.coffee or send me a message!

PS: The photos are old photos from my previous tasting events 😉

05/26/2026

It’s been two weeks since I made a feed post. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with social media consistently, which is why I never promised regular posting lol 😂

Anyways, a lot has happened over the past two weeks. I’ve been really busy and also accomplished a few important milestones. One of them is my permanent-ish menu card. Since opening fika in October 2025, I’ve been experimenting with different ways of displaying the menu. I learned how you interacted with it, and most importantly, I observed how the weather interacted with it too lol. The goal was to use sustainable materials while still maintaining my aesthetic preferences. Finally, I think I’ve found a way.

This project also made me realize how simple things like this play such an important role when you run a business with so much passion and love ❤️

This new way of displaying the menu will avoid a lot of the confusion my earlier methods caused. The cards are also protected from rain and wind! They’ve been tested really well in all kinds of extreme conditions so far — thanks to the dynamic weather lately ⛈️ 😀

Most importantly, I redesigned the layout to make it a bit longer, which helped reduce paper waste. There was quite a lot of waste in my earlier designs and layouts 🌍

Come say hi to my new menu cards — and to me, of course! That’s all for today. I’ll share some of my other important achievements in the upcoming posts.

05/09/2026

The Coffee Crew is Canada’s first all-coffee resource platform, and they are 31 years old. They visited Fika yesterday to buy coffee. Soon after they left, they mentioned on social media that this could be the best espresso in Victoria. I felt honoured to receive that kind of appreciation from pioneers.

If you need more inspiration and motivation to bring your own mug to cafés in town, check out as they have been working on reducing single use for a very long time locally 💚

05/08/2026

Yesterday, I started my day slowly, following a South Indian tradition. Inspired by my mom, I drew my first kolam on the ground, and it felt so good. To amp up my traditional spirit, I also gifted my soul a South Indian Filter Kaapi. Kolam is a South Indian folk art of hand-drawn lines and dots that form intricate sacred-geometry patterns — a daily act of beauty, devotion, and harmony.

I ended the day with deep appreciation and gratitude for coffee farmers who produce excellent-tasting specialty coffee without harming biodiversity and while safeguarding ancient forests.

The deep appreciation is because my heart will not agree with practicing my art while harming biodiversity — so without farmers like Mahesh, Fika and .coffee won’t exist! 💚

05/07/2026

Date: May 6, 2026

I practice slow living, and social media is fast. That contradiction kept me from posting on Instagram feed often.

A thought came up while meditating: the most frequently asked question to a barista in Canada is, “How’s your day going?” I started thinking about how to answer that in a more meaningful way, since I journal those experiences pretty much every day anyway.

So I’ve decided to use this page to slowly share my answer to the question, “How was my day?” I won’t promise I’ll keep using this page to share my daily journal as a coffee artisan, but that’s the goal. It may change, because change is inevitable. Welcome to the life of a coffee artisan! 💚

04/16/2026

Closing early today — Thu, April 16 — for a simple medical appointment.

Open today 9 - 1 🙂

Regular open hour 9 - 3 resumes from tomorrow April 17

Have a great day!

02/03/2026

South Indian filter kaapi is a strong, aromatic coffee brewed slowly as a decoction using Brass or Stainless Steel Brewer. It evolved in home kitchens, shaped strongly by Brahmin households where routine, purity, and slow preparation mattered. From homes, Udupi hotels carried kaapi into public spaces, turning it into a shared South Indian ritual.

Triplicane, a historic neighbourhood in Chennai famous for traditional Brahmin culture, is my home base when I’m in India, where micro-roasters fill the neighbourhood with the aroma of freshly roasted coffee. Street coffee shops like J’s Coffee roast and serve authentic filter kaapi, and around the temple you can witness everyday Brahmin life while enjoying a quiet sip of South Indian filter kaapi.

☕️ When I return to Victoria and reopen Fika, kaapi will find its way onto the menu in an improvised form—quietly shaped by these learnings, lived moments, and the unhurried rhythms of South India. ☕

01/29/2026

☕️ Tracing back to my journey of becoming Coffee Artist

I found Mesa Coffee in 2020 while walking through the narrow streets of Triplicane—browsing, people-watching, following a smell I couldn’t ignore. It was coffee roasting.

Inside was a large Probat roaster—rare in local cafés, where most use locally made machines. Seeing a Probat told me something: care, consistency, a data-driven respect for quality. Outside, people stood sipping freshly brewed South Indian filter kaapi.

Mesa isn’t a specialty coffee shop in the conventional sense—you won’t find farmer names, varietals, or roast choices. And that’s not the point. What they do best is South Indian Filter Kaapi — a type of coffee beverage recipe originated from South India.

Fast forward to 2026: I visited Mesa again! the roaster is gone off-site, the space is open for community, conversations flow. Hearing someone say, “This [filter] is real coffee” gave me hope—that specialty coffee will soon hit small streets of India & belong to everyone, not just the elites.



Comment below to continue the conversation! 🤗

01/25/2026

🙋🏽‍♂️ It’s been four weeks since Fika went into hibernation and I began my journey to India to meet a wide range of coffee people—from farmers to baristas—to learn, unlearn, and relearn. Fika will reopen on March 1st. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some stories from my expedition here. So here’s the first one!

The main goal of this year’s expedition is to track and document biodiversity in coffee forests, through my work as a nature conservation photographer. You already know Mahesh, and we’ve served hundreds of cups of his coffee at Fika. I stayed in his forests and witnessed the magical microclimate he and his team have created—working in collaboration with nature—to provide a safe habitat for both people and wildlife. This video is a glimpse of what I experienced.

Along with many other stories, I’ll be sharing more about Mahesh’s farm in the weeks to come. So stay tuned—and live happy! 💚