Coffee from India

This is my first post about coffee. When I was in India in May I travelled south to visit the Highfield Tea Estate in the Nilgiri region. While there I realized that India has a noteworthy coffee industry.

One day I accompanied some of the Highfield staff to a market in Coonoor and they helped me pick up some coffee for my coffee loving brother and sister-in-law.

Santha Coffee Works

Tea & Coffee Merchants, Market, Coonoor -2

Arabica coffee, Grade Peaberry

From Coorg Karnataka, Southern India

What does Peaberry mean? In the coffee fruit there are two seeds. As the seeds develop in the cherry one side of each seed will be flat. Most often both seed will develop, but sometimes only one does. That’s the peaberry and it’s typically rounder. It has a higher value amongst coffee lovers due to its rarity and difference in flavors and aromas.

The beans have a matte finish to them, indicating a modest roast. The aroma in the bag is pleasant – purely coffee and nothing addition or distracting from that. Sometimes you smell the inside of a bag of beans and you sense a sharpness, sourness, or plastic.

While I’m very savvy with flavors and differences amongst teas, I’m much less so with coffee. I can say the taste of the brew is satisfying and there was nothing masking a range of flavors I’m used too when tasting coffee.