As soon as you enter this farm you know you are in a very special place. You could be entering the RHS at Wisley – everything is so well manicured, almost not commercial. The farm is now in the hands of Vignesh Chandrashekar now the fifth generation of Chandrashekar to farm the land. 

The estate / land were originally bought from the British planters departing India in the early 1900’s. It was the spot where the British first tested the soil to plant coffee in India and you can see why, the surroundings are just beautiful. 

The estate is in what can only be described as part of a hamlet called Anoor Post, around 13km outside Chikmagalur Town , Chikmagalur, in the state of Karnataka. It sits at an altitude - 3800 to 4200 mts growing in the main variety Arabica SLN 795 and SLN 6 – but is also experimenting with some lesser well know Arabica varieties to India which is very interesting. 

The crop is very well managed and organically farmed although not organically registered. They are using copper sulphate which is used as a herbicide, fungicide and pesticide. 

Again as with all coffee farms that grow under shade, the shade trees prevent soil erosion on sloping terrain in the wet season, they enrich the soil by recycling nutrients from deeper layers of the soil while protecting the crop and adding to the flora and fauna. The coffee is selectively hand-picked into hip bags and then transferred to 50kg bags ready for transportation to the holding tanks pre-processing. 

At present the farm uses the honey process method where the mucilage is left on the beans after pulping. Those familiar with coffee processing methods will, of course, recognize this practice as a kind of compromise between two more familiar processing methods: the dry or “natural” method, in which the beans are dried while entirely encased inside the fruit, and the wet or “washed” method, in which all of the soft fruit residue, both skin and pulp, are scrubbed off before the coffee is dried. The drying of the parchment with all the mucilage still attached has a direct impact on the sweetness of the cup. Honey coffees generally have a very unique cup profile, characterized by its distinct sweetness, enhanced fruit notes and sweet acidity on the taste and aftertaste. 

Vignesh Chandrashekar is due to visit our roastery in March to enhance the relationship.