July 8, 2025
4 minute learn
This can be a visitor publish written by Pranoy Thipaiah of the Kerehaklu Property in Chikmagalur, India, who produced the coffees launched by Aviary as AVIARY#XX2 and AVIARY#016.
Espresso didn’t present up in India final decade, or the one earlier than that, using the latest wave of latte artwork and Aeropress championships. It got here a lot, a lot earlier – on foot, in secret, throughout borders, oceans, and centuries. The story’s been sitting right here for some time. We simply haven’t been telling it loud sufficient.
Let’s start with a well-recognized title: Baba Budan, a Sufi saint from Yemen, who, within the seventeenth Century, is claimed to have smuggled seven espresso seeds out of the Arabian Peninsula, apparently tucked away in his lengthy beard. On the time, Yemen and its port metropolis of Mocha, had been protecting of – what appeared to be – their espresso monopoly. Beans apparently weren’t allowed to depart the Arabian Peninsula – particularly unroasted. However Baba Budan didn’t simply break the foundations – he rewrote the agricultural way forward for a subcontinent.
He planted these seeds on our misty slopes of Chikmagalur, now one thing of a holy web site for Indian espresso. And right here’s what’s simple to overlook: this wasn’t only a symbolic act. It gave India a quiet head-start. Arabica might have change into world-famous later by different elements of the world, however the Indian subcontinent was one of many first locations it set down roots.
Sri Lanka had its second too, receiving its first beans from Yemen at an analogous time – earlier than the infamous espresso leaf rust shifted the Ceylon estates’ focus in the direction of tea. However India held on. Arabica settled in, and Robusta adopted later – which after all has been valued extra for its hardiness and disease-resistance than for something it needed to say within the cup.
You could possibly say Arabica was the gifted poet, Robusta the workhorse. Each ready for his or her moments.
However right here’s the place it will get attention-grabbing. That early begin – over 300 years in the past now – has given Indian espresso bushes time to evolve, hybridise, and quietly construct distinctive genetic character. It issues. And I’ll inform you why.
Researchers at organisations just like the Central Espresso Analysis Institute (CCRI) in India have recognized Indian cultivars with pure resistance to drought and illness, and flavour traits we’re solely now starting to completely perceive. Take S9, for instance – an incredible and versatile selection which has immense potential within the cup and within the discipline.
Deep roots and numerous genetics are beginning to appear to be an actual benefit within the age of local weather unpredictability.
And whereas many nonetheless affiliate “nice espresso” with volcanic soil or high-altitude Latin American farms, there’s a special story taking place right here. On Indian estates, espresso is commonly grown beneath an intricate cover of jackfruit, arecanut, avocado, and citrus bushes – each including one thing refined (and somethings apparent) to our ecological niches. These aren’t ornamental; the over-arching bushes form rainfall, pest-pressure, gentle, humidity, and soil life.
Particularly the soil, in reality.
A lot of India’s espresso is grown beneath a long time, even centuries, of natural cowl. Layers of fallen leaves, bark, decomposed fruit, and animal life create soils which might be wealthy, nutritious, darkish, and really a lot alive.
This microbial exercise doesn’t simply assist our crops develop – it has a task in fermentation too. On our personal farm – Kerehaklu – we’ve been tapping into these native microbes to develop wild starter cultures – drawn from the flowers, fruits, leaves, the bark, the air itself – to kickstart wild fermentations throughout espresso processing. The flavour that emerges is unmistakably native, and inconceivable to duplicate elsewhere.
And after we say shade-grown in India, we don’t imply a couple of scattered bushes. The shade right here is thick – usually two or three tiers of cover. It’s a type of shade density you gained’t discover in lots of different coffee-growing areas anyplace on the planet. Or any?
More and more, growers are leaning in the direction of native species. Indigenous bushes – particularly the figs which might be Keystone species in our lands – carry extra than simply biodiversity – they maintain cultural reminiscence, assist wildlife, enhance mycorrhizal networks, and nourish the soil with out an over-dependence on artificial inputs.
It’s not an aesthetic selection. It’s a practical ecosystem.
Robusta, too, is beginning to shed its outdated fame. Like an outdated non-venomous rat snake, who you lastly realise is definitely no hurt in any respect. For years, it was dismissed as commodity filler – low-cost, bitter, forgettable. However that’s not the entire story.
Grown with care, picked ripe, and processed with intent, Robusta can maintain its personal. We’ve began seeing cups with actual character: notes of cacao, darkish berries, port wine are a few of many being slurped. The key was by no means the range – it was the way it was handled.
Nonetheless, the world’s thought of Indian espresso has been caught in an outdated body. We’ve been seen as exporters of generic beans, the (in)well-known monsooned tons, or the bottom of an immediate mix. For a very long time, we didn’t problem that narrative.
What additionally struck me – one thing we don’t discuss sufficient – is how superior our Indian dry mills are. “Curing Works” as we name them right here, are up there with among the finest on the planet. Once I visited farms and mills in East Africa, I used to be actually stunned to seek out that the dry milling high quality and efforts there didn’t at all times match what we’re quietly doing again residence.
Right here, we now have the power to be particular – lot by lot, bag by bag – and deal with the espresso with care, with the assistance of Brazilian and Japanese equipment. That wasn’t at all times the case in India, however that’s modified. And it may very well be one in every of our greatest trump playing cards within the years to return.
The Indian espresso provide chain was targeted on quantity, not high quality.
Now, youthful producer-processors with experimental mindsets, and small-scale collectives are approaching espresso in a different way. They’re treating every lot like a dialog – one which begins in our numerous soil and ends within the cups which might be stunning folks.
Our Indian arabica varieties like S9, S10, Chandragiri, are hand-harvested on the proper time, processed with precision, dried slowly to carry out nuance. We’re not simply rising espresso anymore. We’re elevating it.
And possibly, simply possibly, we’re on the sting of one thing.
As a result of once you mix outdated genetics with dwelling soil, dense shade, and cautious processing, you begin to uncover flavour that isn’t simply good – it’s distinct.
India’s espresso story doesn’t want reinvention. It wants recognition. We simply by no means stopped rising. We’ve been right here all alongside.
It doesn’t style like Colombia or Kenya.
It tastes like right here.
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