Six hours from Bengaluru, the landscape surrendered to a green corridor heavy with the scent of damp earth and peppers until it felt as though I was driving into a tropical rainforest. Towering silver oak trees stood sentinel over bushy robusta shrubs, their white blossoms releasing a fragrance, uncannily close to jasmine. This is Evolve Back Chikkana Halli Estate — a 300-acre coffee plantation owned by the Ramapuram family in the heart of Coorg. Here, mornings begin with mist lifting gently off the slopes, followed by birdwatching walks through the estate. As the day unfolds, guests step into the diegesis of a working plantation, joining guided tours of plantation walks, learning about harvesting cycles, and spending unhurried afternoons in cupping sessions that decode flavour notes. By sundown, the estate’s granary, thoughtfully transformed into an intimate restaurant with the restored fireplace, becomes the venue for lingering coffee conversations, framed by sweeping plantation views and a sky turning amber at the backdrop of the forest.
An Uphill Ride To The Plantation
The next morning, an all-terrain vehicle carried me up winding estate roads to Elkhill Estate, a 2,500-acre plantation owned by the Ramapuram family and comprising five coffee estate facilities. The uphill drive cuts through a lush belt of Arabica thriving under the canopy of Coorg’s wilderness where dappled light, high altitude, and mineral-rich laterite soil create ideal growing conditions for prized beans.
The process begins with freshly harvested cherries being pulped to remove their outer skins. The beans are still coated in mucilage, a natural fruit sugar. Next it undergoes controlled fermentation for about 24 hours. This stage is critical: careful fermentation helps develop flavour complexity while improving clarity in the cup.
Once fermentation is complete, the beans are thoroughly washed to remove any remaining mucilage. Drying follows, which includes a combination of mechanical dryers and traditional sun-drying on cement floors and raised beds. The final stage takes place at the curing unit, where the dried parchment layer — the papery protective coat is removed. The green beans are then graded by size and density before being prepared for roasting or export. “It is the preparation of the coffee beans that follows next which makes the specialty coffees,” informed Thivya Bharathi M, the QC expert at Elkhill.
One specialty bean that particularly caught my interest was Monsoon Malabar.
Thivya, whose passion for Indian coffee is both infectious and deeply informed, shares with me the history behind the Monsoon Malabar beans. The story dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when Indian beans shipped to Europe spent nearly three months at sea in the wooden hulls of slow-moving ships. During the long voyage, the beans were exposed to monsoon winds and saline sea air, conditions that would naturally transform the beans. By the time the cargo reached European ports, the beans had swollen to almost twice their original size. Their colour had turned pale and golden, and their sharp acidity had softened into a rounded, earthy character. What emerged in the cup was smooth and creamy, with a distinctive, gently musty depth, a flavour profile that quickly became a favourite among European palates.
Today, that accidental maritime alchemy is meticulously recreated on land. But before we know about this speciality beans, it is important to know about the harvesting of their unique coffee cherries.
“Our coffees are grown beneath a diverse canopy that includes ancient fig trees, along with jackfruit, avocado and native species such as century-old oak and rosewood. This layered shade is crucial,” the naturalist, Annappa, explains during the plantation walk at Chikkhana Hali Estate. As we walk deeper into the plantation, the trail is interspersed with towering shade trees and thick-stemmed robusta shrubs. The coffee bushes are in bloom, their white flowers popping with the leaves as though a sudden snowfall has settled across the estate. Coffee plants, I learn, can grow up to 25–30 feet tall in the wild. Here, however, they are carefully pruned to about six feet, a height that makes harvesting easier while also encouraging healthier yields.
The naturalist pauses beside a cluster of blossoms. “Indian coffees are shade-grown and that makes all the difference”. Unlike the Brazilian coffee which gets direct sunlight, Indian cherries undergo a slower maturation under the canopy, reducing the bitterness and churning a smoother, more layered flavour profile. Robusta, he adds, delivers a stronger hit, with caffeine content reaching up to 2.7 percent, which explains its bold, punchy character. Arabica, by contrast, produces a gentler, sweeter brew with lower caffeine levels, averaging around 1.5 percent. It thrives at higher elevations, typically between 800 and 2,000 feet above sea level, where cooler temperatures and slower growth lend complexity and nuance to the cup.
During the coffeeology session, I learned that both Arabica and Robusta can be used to craft Monsoon Malabar; there is no fixed blend ratio. The balance depends entirely on the flavour profile the producer wishes to achieve.
Curious about what goes into the Monsoon Malabar cherries, I turn to Thivya for clarity. Unlike conventional processing methods, she explains, select whole cherries are carefully chosen, dried intact using the natural process, allowing the fruit’s sugars to seep slowly into the bean, creating layered sweetness and a fuller body in the cup.
After hulling, which means the dried outer husk is removed to expose the green bean, it’s polished, graded and sorted and only high-quality beans make their way to the coastal warehouses of the Malabar region to begin the ‘monsooning process’. Timing is crucial. “For Monsoon Malabar, we produce the beans in June and send them to Mangalore when the monsoon winds strike the coastal belt.” Thivya tells me.
These beans are cured exclusively along the Malabar coast during the south-west monsoon months of June to September, when a slow exposure to humid sea winds ultimately shapes their distinctive flavour profile. In Mangalore, both Arabica and Robusta green beans are spread across well-ventilated, cement-floored warehouses. They are raked in uniform intervals to ensure full exposure to the heavy, moisture-laden winds. Over a period of three months of the process, the beans absorb the moisture of the humid monsoon winds, transforming the beans to almost double their size and turning the green beans to pale yellow. The resulting coffee carries notes reminiscent of aged beans, low in acidity yet full-bodied and smooth — a profile that has won over connoisseurs across the world. Recognised for its distinct identity and deep-rooted heritage, Monsoon Malabar has been granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, designating the Malabar coast as the exclusive region where the monsooning process can be carried out.
Thivya adds, Monsoon Malabar beans can be medium to dark roasted and shines bold in a pour over or espresso brew with a full body, heavy, earthy flavour, smooth, creamy texture and near-total lack of acidity with a thick crema, which is the brown, frothy foam that sits on top of a freshly brewed espresso.
At day’s end, as I surrender to the pool watching the sun dip behind a canopy of towering silver oaks entwined with pepper vines, a flash of russet catches my eye, the Malabar giant squirrel leaping effortlessly between branches.
In that quiet, amber-lit hour, it is hard to imagine that this plantation was once a dense, impenetrable forest. It was the British, recognising the region’s trading potential, who gradually reshaped this wilderness into what would become India’s coffee heartland, a landscape where ecology, enterprise and history remain deeply intertwined.
From colonial history to rich laterite terroir and the moisture-laden monsoon winds, Monsoon Malabar is more than a single-origin coffee. It is a narrative in a cup, of landscape, legacy, and craftsmanship converging in every sip.
