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This presents a dilemma for roasters: why not
source from a well-known and more popular coffee
producing country than risking with Indian coffee?
However, they are open to buy a lot of commodity
coffee from India, as Indian commercial coffee is a
good mix for blend. It can even replace Colombian/
Brazilian coffees in a blend if needed so that the
blend flavors remain similar throughout the year.
As we speak, there are some amazing farmers
and exporters from India, and some really cool
coffee roasters who are collectively pushing their
limits to get single origin Indian Coffee in the USA,
UK, and Australia. There, coffees from India can
be kept on the shelf right next to a Kenyan or an
Ethiopian. But for the producers, the challenge
remains the same: why produce “specialty grade”
coffee if it doesn’t get the expected premium price
when exported? For them, it’s better to play it safe
with commercially graded coffee and keep the
specialty coffee process for domestic consumption,
as the prices received for domestic consumption
are the same they would receive for exporting.
Indian Coffee producers are also pushing the
boundaries with coffees and are at par with pro-
cessing like any other country. Farmers are pro-
ducing exceptionally good, clean, washed coffees,
fruity naturals, boozy-barrel fermented coffees, all
the way to thermal shock, koji and extended fer-
mentation, carbonic macerated coffees and more,
all done here within the country as well. However,
most of the experimental lots are produced by
well-known, bigger farms who can afford the risk
of failing. India is fairly new to this “specialty”
coffee, and the processing methods often associ-
ated with such coffees are also limited. And like
everywhere, coffee education is either too expen-
sive or too scarce, but mostly both.

A Time for Education

There is a huge imbalance of knowledge that
exists in the country between the producers,
consumers, and intermediaries. Unfortunately,
more often than not, the producers are at the
bottom of it. Most sources of coffee knowledge Most growers don’t see
are either too expensive for small-scale growers
to afford, or the source of the education is just the value in the knowledge
too complicated and far-fetched for them. Most
growers don’t see the value in the knowledge and and effort when compared to
effort when compared to the returns that they get
from selling the coffees. the returns that they get.

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