India
Coffee was introduced to India during the late 17th century. The story is that an Indian pilgrim named Baba Budan brought seven coffee beans back to India from Yemen and planted them in Karnataka.
The Dutch helped spread the cultivation of coffee across the country but it was with the arrival of the British Raj that commercial coffee farming flourished for real.
The initial cultivation was done with Arabica but very big infestations of rust forced many farmers to switch to Robusta, which is far more rust-resistent that Arabica.
India exports around 70% of its coffee production (roughly split between 30% arabica and 70% robusta). Despite this, there is a growing domestic market for coffee, as coffee shops rise in urban areas.
The majority of Indian coffee is produced by small farms, located in the traditional growing regions in the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Here coffe trees are grown together with leguminous trees, often intercropped with spices and fruit crops such as cardamom, pepper and vanilla. Coffees can be processed using natural (known locally as ”cherry coffee”) or washed (known locally as “parchment coffee”) methods,. It is usually dried on patios or, in some larger farms, into mechanical dryers.
