Coffee: India - Revision history

Jyoti: /* Hardy Varieties: Arabica. Robusta */

2026-03-29T10:29:49Z

‎Hardy Varieties: Arabica. Robusta

Jyoti: /* Darjeeling */

2026-03-24T17:06:47Z

‎Darjeeling

Jyoti: /* 2024 */

2025-05-20T20:01:46Z

‎2024

Pdewan: /* Consumption */

2025-04-20T10:15:21Z

‎Consumption

Jyoti: /* 2013-14 */

2025-03-23T21:35:22Z

‎2013-14

Jyoti: /* Consumption */

2025-03-23T21:32:25Z

‎Consumption

Pdewan at 13:34, 9 February 2025

2025-02-09T13:34:22Z

Jyoti: /* Araku Valley coffee */

2024-08-01T20:43:41Z

‎Araku Valley coffee

Jyoti: /* Types of Indian coffee */

2024-04-15T19:44:34Z

‎Types of Indian coffee

Jyoti: /* Consumption */

2024-03-16T22:11:37Z

‎Consumption

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  In Karnataka’s hills, planters are already waking up — and smelling what the future of coffee might hold.
 ===KNOW YOUR BEAN===
 Arabica: Smooth, aromatic, flavourful

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  Umesh Gurung, a barista and certiﬁed coffee roaster, had his epiphany on a trip to the Nepal border in 2014, where he saw coffee being produced by the neighbouring country. With the geography almost identical, he wondered why they shouldn’t experiment with the popular beverage at home. From that realisation a decade ago, Himalayan Cornerstone — the brand he retails online and at his Andante Cafe in Siliguri — this year produced 6,500kg of good coffee.
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  Planters have contended with losses inflicted by wild animals due to their proximity to forests. “While elephants & bisons stray into the estates in search of food and water, damaging the coffee plants, swarms of monkeys and giant squirrels enter the plantations and pluck the berries to suck the sweet pulp,” lamented A C Ponnappa, a planter from Kodagu, highlighting the challenges posed by wildlife.
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 Caffeine, experts say, also enhances the preference for sweet foods and leads to an overall greater incidence of being overweight. There are more direct effects on neural, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal functions.
 =Exports=

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:35, 23 March 2025
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	According to the Indian Coffee Board, the first planting of coffee in India happened in 1600 CE when saint Baba Budan planted seven seeds of mocha in the courtyard of his hermitage in Karnataka. Commercial plantation started during the 18th century. Traditionally, it is grown in the Western Ghats spread over Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Coffee is grown predominantly as an export commodity in India as about 65%-70% of the total coffee produced in the country is exported. In 2013-14, the total production was over 3 lakh metric tonnes, of which about 70% was produced in Karnataka alone.		According to the Indian Coffee Board, the first planting of coffee in India happened in 1600 CE when saint Baba Budan planted seven seeds of mocha in the courtyard of his hermitage in Karnataka. Commercial plantation started during the 18th century. Traditionally, it is grown in the Western Ghats spread over Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Coffee is grown predominantly as an export commodity in India as about 65%-70% of the total coffee produced in the country is exported. In 2013-14, the total production was over 3 lakh metric tonnes, of which about 70% was produced in Karnataka alone.
		+
		+	==2023-24: India vis-à-vis the world==
		+	[[File: Coffee production in India vis-à-vis the world, 2023-24.jpg\| Coffee production in India vis-à-vis the world, 2023-24 <br/> From: [https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=09_02_2025_013_005_cap_TOI February 9, 2025: ''The Times of India'']\|frame\|500px]]
		+
		+	'''See graphic''':
		+
		+	'' Coffee production in India vis-à-vis the world, 2023-24 ''
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		+	[[Category:Cuisine\|CCOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
		+	[[Category:India\|CCOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
		+	[[Category:Pages with broken file links\|COFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
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	=Types of Indian coffee=		=Types of Indian coffee=

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:32, 23 March 2025
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	Caffeine, experts say, also enhances the preference for sweet foods and leads to an overall greater incidence of being overweight. There are more direct effects on neural, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal functions.		Caffeine, experts say, also enhances the preference for sweet foods and leads to an overall greater incidence of being overweight. There are more direct effects on neural, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal functions.
		+
		+	=Exports=
		+	==2020- 2024==
		+	[[File: The Export of Indian coffee, 2020- 2024.jpg\|The Export of Indian coffee, 2020- 2024 <br/> From: [https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=08_02_2025_014_006_cap_TOI February 8, 2025: ''The Times of India'']\|frame\|500px]]
		+
		+	'''See graphic''':
		+
		+	'' The Export of Indian coffee, 2020- 2024 ''
		+
		+	[[Category:Cuisine\|CCOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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	=Recipes=		=Recipes=

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 =See also=
 [[Geographical Indication]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:43, 1 August 2024
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	Plan is to launch the next set of retail stores in New York and Tokyo. Which means the world famous Columbian and Sumatra coffees will soon have competition on the shelf from a little-known region called Araku in India.		Plan is to launch the next set of retail stores in New York and Tokyo. Which means the world famous Columbian and Sumatra coffees will soon have competition on the shelf from a little-known region called Araku in India.
		+
		+	==Darjeeling==
		+	===2024===
		+	[https://epaper.indiatimes.com/article-share?article=16_06_2024_018_001_cap_TOI Joel Rai, June 16, 2024: ''The Times of India'']
		+
		+
		+	To the north of Darjeeling town, two spurs descend steeply to the Rangeet, the river whose snaky course forms the boundary between Sikkim and West Bengal. Rising from the left bank of the river on the Darjeeling side are the tea gardens of Badamtam, Ging, Singla and Vah Tukvar and the hamlets of Limbu Busty and Lapchey Busty. The coiffeured look of the tea estates is broken on the fringes by unpruned bushes — dark green, waxy leaves with wavy edges, adorned at certain times of the year with deep red berries.
		+
		+	Mention of Darjeeling makes you think of the volatile oils of the tea plant serenading your olfactory nerves and waltzing with your taste buds. But if that’s all that the name evokes, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. For the raggedy clumps spoiling the serenity of the tea gardens are coffee plants.
		+
		+	There now are many of these coffee clusters across the hills of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Mirik and Kalimpong. Strange, because Darjeeling has been, since the 1860s, a synonym for tea, the kind that satisfies the soul, attracts eye-watering prices and makes you preen when you offer it to special guests. But now these hills are home, too, for this interloper — a beverage that is as body as tea is not, as tinged with acid as tea is not, as different as a French press is from a china pot. The debate might only be on which gives off a more energising aroma.
		+
		+	''' Late Bloomer '''
		+
		+	Take a sip. Coffee from the land of tea is making itself heard and tasted, slowly but surely. From around a decade ago, when some people casually planted the seeds and found the cherries ripening to produce beans, indigenous coffee is now being sold in cafes in the tourist hubs in the region, in souvenir shops alongside packets of tea, and on ecommerce sites. Umesh Gurung, a barista, certified coffee roaster and quality controller from the Coffee Board of India not only offers his own Himalayan Cornerstone coffee at the Andante Café in Siliguri, opened in 2019, but also on Amazon and Flipkart. Sanjog Dutta, owner of Daammee.com, which sells specialty items from the region, regularly dispatches hill coffee to customers in different parts of the country. Altura Coffee in Darjeeling has also grown from a small café to a big player, in relative terms, as has Himali Highland Coffee in Kalimpong.
		+
		+	Hill coffee is still minuscule, with a production of around a puny 10.5 tonnes all told against the 3.4 lakh tonnes of the bean that India produces, mainly in the south. Like foam and latte, the adventure in tea land boils down to the teamwork between farmers and processors/roasters. The coffee is grown by farmer collectives on their micro-holdings, often in their traditional homes in tea gardens. They have no means or expertise for processing the cherry they grow. That important task is left to the entrepreneurs who, despite lack of investment, have made a good beginning.
		+
		+	Gurung had his epiphany on a 2014 trip to the Nepal border, where he saw coffee being produced by the neighbouring country. With the geography almost identical, he wondered why they shouldn’t experiment with the popular beverage at home. From that realisation a decade ago, Himalayan Cornerstone this year produced 6,500kg of good coffee. Induction of South Korean coffee expert, Young Gyu Seo, has brought in much-needed expertise in processing and roasting.
		+
		+	''' Serendipitous Start '''
		+
		+	For Rishi Raj Pradhan of Himali Highland, it was unplanned destiny. In 2014, he was given four Arabica saplings by coffee expert Llewellyn Tripp of Australia, who’d stayed at Rishi’s homestay in Kalimpong. Owing more to curiousity than to any whiff of opportunity, Rishi saw the plants to maturity in 2017, harvested around 2kg of beans and, with uneducated guesses, blundered through the roasting. Encouraged, he planted more saplings. Today, his home plantation grows 400 Arabica varietals and 1,000 hybrid Chandragiri plants. He produced 650kg of coffee this year. Amazingly, besides regular advice from Tripp, Rishi’s journey has mostly been experiential, his entire knowledge acquired on the internet and from reading the literature and conversations with experts.
		+
		+	Altura’s Vikash Pradhan had an even more compelling reason for plumping for his own coffee setup. The café that he founded along with his two partners, Prayash Pradhan and Raman Shrestha, in the tourist magnet of Darjeeling town had a Lavazza machine. In 2010, it broke down and nothing they did could get either the machine working or the company rushing to remedy the situation. After going without coffee on the menu for a couple of years, a café worker told Pradhan in 2013 that he had a few coffee plants at his home on the outskirts of Darjeeling town. On a lark and relying on YouTube for knowhow, Pradhan and his partners roasted a handful of the locally grown beans. When it passed muster, rather eminently, the thought that they wouldn’t have to rely on imports from the plains urged the group to try their hand at producing coffee themselves.
		+
		+	Even the coffee farmers took to the bean for reasons other than coffee itself. Sunil Subba, who heads the Darjeeling Coffee Committee that oversees the efforts of over 70 households growing coffee, smiles when he says, “I am actually involved in the welfare of the poor tea garden workers, particularly their education and health. With the tea gardens in poor health in recent years, and the cash crops of oranges and cardamom failing frequently, I was looking for ways in which the affected families could supplement their income. Coffee came at an opportune moment.”
		+
		+	Subba’s group began in 2016, with some of them getting trained in growing coffee in Nepal and at workshops in Darjeeling. “It takes around four years for a plant to start producing fruit that can be made into coffee,” he says. This year, they grew 3,500kg of coffee cherries with Subba saying that “from a handful of plants, now our members have 1.7 lakh bushes; next year, our harvest might go up to 8,000kg”.
		+
		+	''' Way To Grow '''
		+
		+	In Kalimpong, where the local Gorkhaland Territorial Administration conceived of coffee to replace the outdated cinchona and utilise the vast holdings and the quinine factory infrastructure at Mungpoo, coffee growers had a baptism by fire. GTA, in partnership with the Bengal horticulture department and Directorate of Cinchona and other Medicinal Plants, distributed saplings in 2019, but the enthusiastic farmers found that the plants could not stand the dew. They lost a large portion of the saplings. Starting all over, they are on a better footing today with private processors and roasters buying their cherries.
		+
		+	Arjun Rai, lead farmer at Sangse Busty, says his group brought in 1,100kg of parchment, which is coffee fruit with the fleshy exterior removed. Parchment has to further undergo removal of a layer before its two beans can be extracted for roasting.
		+
		+	Lack of funds has been a problem, but the companies have gamely weathered the storm. Altura’s Pradhan says, “While the bigger players elsewhere are solving problems with capital and investments, we are trying to find innovative solutions within our means.” He talks about how they overcame the problem of the varying ambient temperature in Darjeeling between November and April, which affects fermentation and resulted in differing flavours across batches even with the same fermentation period. “Big players have climate-controlled rooms and vats. All that is beyond us. But we have devised our own system that does not cost much and also makes uniform fermentation possible,” he says.
		+
		+	So does coffee made in a teapot enthuse connoisseurs? “Samples sent across the country and abroad have garnered rave reviews,” claims Gurung. Daammee’s Dutta says, “Since the production is not too big, the costs involved are steep. That could be one of the reasons why things are picking up slowly, though I must say the quality of the Arabica is exceptional.”
		+
		+	As for the future, Vikash Pradhan says coffee can be commodity or specialty, the former a low margin, high-volume crop like in south India, the latter low-volume but high quality. “The quality of a coffee is measured as a cupping score and 80+ is considered specialty,” says Pradhan. “This model requires intensive action and monitoring right from varietal selection to land, growing, processing and roasting. We are looking to have at least one cupping champion in the coming three or four years.
		+
		+	“Arabica coffee, as a crop, loves altitude but a single night of frost can decimate a plantation. We did some research and figured out that the latitude where we belong gives us unique growing conditions. So, as of now, we believe that we need to start labelling our local coffee as ‘High Latitude’ rather than ‘High Altitude’.”
		+	Add attitude to that. Can’t you hear Gurung, Vikash Pradhan, Rishi Pradhan, Dutta, Subba, Rai and all the farmers grinning and saying, “Bean there, done that”?
		+
		+	Coffee brand Altura’s founder Vikash Pradhan got going after a worker at his cafe told him in 2013 about some coffee plants at his home on the outskirts of Darjeeling town. Relying on YouTube for knowhow, Pradhan and his partners roasted a handful of the locally grown beans. When it passed muster, the thought that they wouldn’t have to rely on imports from the plains urged the group to try their hand at producing coffee themselves.
		+
		+	Umesh Gurung, a barista and certiﬁed coffee roaster, had his epiphany on a trip to the Nepal border in 2014, where he saw coffee being produced by the neighbouring country. With the geography almost identical, he wondered why they shouldn’t experiment with the popular beverage at home. From that realisation a decade ago, Himalayan Cornerstone — the brand he retails online and at his Andante Cafe in Siliguri — this year produced 6,500kg of good coffee.
		+
		+	[[Category:Cuisine\|CCOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
		+	[[Category:Economy-Industry-Resources\|CCOFFEE: INDIACOFFEE: INDIA
		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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		+	COFFEE: INDIA]]
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	=YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS=		=YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS=