India

Legend credits the arrival of coffee in India to Baba Budan, a Sufi saint said to have smuggled seven coffee seeds out of Yemen in the 17th century and planted them in the hills of Karnataka that now bear his name, Baba Budangiri. Commercial cultivation followed under British rule in the 19th century, and India has grown coffee continuously ever since, almost entirely under a tradition of shade cultivation.

Coffee is concentrated in the Western Ghats, across Karnataka (Chikmagalur and Kodagu, also known as Coorg), Kerala (Wayanad) and Tamil Nadu (the Nilgiris). Farms are typically shaded by taller trees and interplanted with pepper, cardamom and other spices, a system that gives Indian coffee a distinctive earthy, spiced character. India is one of the few major origins to grow substantial volumes of both arabica and robusta in reasonably close balance.

Its best-known specialty is Monsooned Malabar: unwashed beans deliberately exposed to the humid monsoon winds on the west coast for weeks or months, causing them to swell and turn pale gold while developing a low-acid, heavy-bodied, distinctly musty and earthy flavour unlike almost any other coffee in the world. Alongside this curiosity, India also produces conventional washed and natural coffees aimed at the wider specialty market.