After Supper: Betelnut This is the Betelnut, a digestive stimulant than has always been popular in India. It comes from the palm family, is diced and served with a mix of spices on a "Betel Leaf" from an unrelated plant |
I am a Betelnut You take a small about of the calcium, spread it on the leaf, put in some Betel Nut mixed with spices, and chew for around 15 minutes (don't swallow!) It was a nice flavor. |
Extended Family Representing the 4 different farms, all related! |
Rasthemane Farm, sacred ground The Rasthemane Farm was next, and features an area that is sacred to a particular Hindu sect. Adjacent to the platform, they perform a fire rite every so often ... i.e. they walk across hot coals. |
Rasthemane Farm This farm was especially beautiful, with older trees and very healthy plants. This is an arabica, type unknown, although they had an odd, old, round-leaf plant that looked like Kents. |
Mr Ashok Explains it all Sherri and Brian listen to Mr. Ashok, the agronomist, as he expounds on plant health, root systems, leaf morphology and what have you! |
Great Yield The arabica here had wonderful yields, and the cup is supposed to be quite good. |
Scarey Green-Yellow Underripes Underripe coffee is separated and dried. Everything is sold somewhere ... just frightnening to think this could make palatable coffee in any universe. Traditionally Russia has been the biggest customer for Indian coffee. |
Patterns in Coffee Patterns made in raking the coffee. Usually the direction of the raking follows the sun, to cast as little shade as possible |
Raised Bed Drying Here are some small screens for drying in the African tradition of "raised beds". This way the air circulates all around the coffee and sometimes dries faster than on the patio. I believe the top grade parchment coffee is dried on screens here. |
Earnest Discussion I can't rememebr exactly what we were talking about, just that we were into it. |
Waiting to Undload Cherry Pickers wait to unload the coffee cherry from the truck. |
Unloading the day's harvest. It's all-women pickers here, and they each get the bag of coffee they harvested. They wear aprons of plastic bag or cloth to keep from getting wet ... also the apron can be used as a "pocket for the coffee" as they pick it. |
Preparing to sort the ripe cherry The coffee is laid out to be hand sorted. |
Dumping the bags of Cherry |
Sorting out the Unripe cherries. |
The "Man" While it's important to make sure green coffee cherry doesn't make it into the top coffee lots, this dude seemed kinda like a jerk. |
An afternoon's work... Leaves and underripes must be removed before patio-drying. It is critical to coffee quality. |
El Capitan Unfortunately, there was a language barrier with the pickers since none spoke English. The name of the state Karnataka, derives from the local South Indian language Kannada. |
Swimming Pool Every estate has a swimming pool, but I guess they don't use them too often. No, this is where the dirty water from the mill is naturally filtered so the ferment fruit-tainted water is not returned to the streams. |
New MicroMill The farm has a new micro-mill, very impressive setup that seems to use little water for a traditional wet-process system. |
Freshly Pulped coffee Freshly pulped (de-skinned) parchment coffee flows into the fermentation tank, lined with tile for cleanliness. |
Red Cherry Red cherry is prescreened just before it enters the pulper. |
Cherry Skins Used for making compost, the skins are deposited into a waiting cart to be hauled off. |
Slimey Seeds At this stage, just after pulping, the de-skinned seed has a layer of fruity mucilage or fruit that clings to it tenaciously. If it was dried right now, it would be a "pulp natural" but wet-process coffee must be fermented for 18 hours (time varies) to break down the fruity layer. Then it is cleaned off, and the parchment coffee (the seed inside the white parchment shell) is ready for drying. |
The Big 'Uns This system actually separates the 19+ seeds which will be sold as Mysore Nuggets Extra Bold grade at a premium. |
Dr. Sunil Tamgale, Videographer. Dr Tamgale is an agriculturist, but he spent much of the trip with video camera in hand. |
Going Home After a long day, coffee pickers who have finished sorting their cherry head home. |
Robusta Orchard I can't deny that the robusta plant is beautiful, old, and grows much more as an orchard, whereas arabica is a little shubby thing. |
India Dog No. 4 Under the Robusta, I met this little friend. It's the typical brown color of most street dogs. |
Another Truck of Pickers Yet another truck of these beautiful Kannadiga women. They are very shy and were asked politely if we could take their picture |
Kannadiga Women, Karnataka India The Kannadiga women have a very distinct look, and the men are very small. Kannada is the 27th most spoken language in the world, so there are a lot of people in Karnataka state. |
Scarey Crow I would be scared of it ... not sure about the birds. |
Formal Gardens It obvious that the planter's houses are quite nice. The orderly layout of the farms comes down from the British decent, as well as the privilege of the owner. |
india bathroom tchotchky I had to photograph the knic-knacs, namely because my house is filled with them too |
india bathroom tchotchky If I found it in a thrift store in the US, it would be MY bathroom decor, but as it stands, it's in a coffee farmer's bathroom in the western ghats, india. |
the headless princess somewhere a beautiful indian princes is missing something. |
Fertilizer Central We were all very tired, but were compelled to stop at a local fertilizer distributor. These are some of the core compounds, this one a plant food just for coffee. |
Coffee Inputs These are some of the specialized coffee inputs, and a few pesticides in there too! |
Ratol? Maybe coffee pests are not the only problem. Try "Ratol" |
Is this as awkward as it looks? We had to stop to receive an honorary hat and garland of cardomom seeds and tufts of red carpet, awarded in the equally awkward setting of a fertilizer supply shop in the small town of Hassan, a few hours from Bangalore. It's just one of those times you gotta take it on the chin ... |
Bus Departs Road or Road Departs Bus The next morning we were off to more farms, and to visit the Central Coffee Research Institute. On the way, we saw a bus run off the road. It's the only hint of an accident I saw in India, which is shocking when you consider the roads. |
Hay, What's Up Man I love being in rural country. Bangalore I can do without. Here, a massively loaded tractor pulling hay |
Christ King, the truck Some of the trucks profess their faith right on the front, such as Krishna Hindu or Christian |
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7
|
|
Sweet Maria's Coffee Roasting Tip Sheets |
|
| Sweet Maria's Coffee Brewing Tip Sheets |
||
| Further Reading | The Complete Sweet Maria's Coffee Library Page - Coffee Travel Pictorials, New Product Reviews, Roasting Pictorials, Etc! |
|
| Interesting Coffee and Coffee Roasting Web Sites - Links to Home Roasting Web Sites, Coffee Industry Sites, Great Coffee Books, Etc! |
||
| Coffee Book Recommendations | ||
|
Sweet Maria's Coffee Cupping Reviews |
Islands/Blends/Others: Hawaii | Puerto Rico | Jamaica | Dominican | Chicory | Saint Helena | Sweet Maria's Blends
Robustas: India | Uganda Archives: A - F | G - K | L - P | R - S | T - Z | 2001-2002 Archive | Pre-2000 Review Archive
|
|
 |
|||
| Green Coffee Beans 70+ Selections | Hearthware I-Roast 2 | Fresh Roast Home Coffee Roaster | Stovetop Popper Roasting |
| Behmor 1600 1 Lb. Roaster | HotTop Drum Roaster | Gene Caffe Drum Roaster | Espresso Equipment & Accessories |
| Nesco Home Coffee Roaster | Technivorm Electric Brewers | Chemex Coffee Brewers | Coffee Bags: for green and roasted |
| Zassenhaus Hand-Crank Mills | Nissan & Zojirushi Travel Cups/ Bottles | Vacuum Brewers: Cona, Bodum, Yama | Coffee Cleaning Supplies-Urnex |
| Espresso Machines: Rancilio Silvia Andreja Premium , Gaggia, | Coffee Books & Posters, Miscellany and our T-Shirts |
Electric Coffee Mills: Mazzer Mini, Solis Maestro, Rancilio Rocky, Bodum | Manual Drip Brewing, SwissGold Filters |
| Our Weekly Roasted Coffee | French Press Coffee Brewing | Ibrik: Turkish Coffee Brewing | Mokapot: Stovetop Espresso |
