Regional Details
If you think coffee from India sounds uncommon, wait until you hear about the Western Ghats mountain range where this coffee was cultivated. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most biologically diverse places in the world with more than 5,000 species of flowering plants and 508 different species of birds. The Neelakurinji flower is so uncommon that it only blooms every twelve years. And the legends say that the Western Ghats mountain range is the location where the first cultivated coffee in India arrived, from seven raw beans brought from Mocha by a Sufi saint on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 17th century.
Sourcing Details
Magical but not so uncommon at Royal is how this coffee came to our attention. Kamalanathan Ramamoorthy (Kamal), the new owner of the 42 acre farm called Thandikudi Estate, reached out to our own Chris Kornman for help, and a relationship in specialty coffee was born. Really, this storyline happens more than you might think. Chris met with Kamal at the Crown (read more about it here) and a plan was developed to bring in the micro-lots.
Processing Details
Kamal relies on his dad to manage the harvest. The estate has its own mill where coffee cherries are meticulously sorted, then depulped, fermented, washed and dried on raised beds. Kamal and his dad also oversee the dry milling, which includes sorting by density, color and hand. The sorted coffee is packed in grainpro bags and exported. Focus on the fundamentals and attention to detail really shows through on the cupping table.
