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Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/178110
I wasn't prepared for India when I stepped off the plane in Bangalore. I ducked out of the door, walked onto the jet bridge and was greeted by a wall of warm, humid air laced with fragrances of spice and … curry? No, it couldn't be. That was my imagination. I walked toward customs to present my passport and visa, but I couldn't shake the feeling that India smelled distinctly of its best-known dish. For the next several hours—in the airport, in the taxi, in my hotel room, wandering around the streets—I breathed deeply the ambient air, searching my sense memory for exactly what it was that I smelled. However, identifying the aroma of India's air was not the primary purpose of my visit. I was sent to India by my employer, Portland Roasting, for two reasons: to participate in the Araku Originals Awards as an international guest and cupper, and to subsequently visit as many coffee farms as my time allowed in the beautiful state of Karnataka. With my trip equally divided between two very different areas of India's coffee-growing region, I found myself in a position to view some stark cultural differences in the methods and philosophies used by farmers on their plantations. because of coffee. A group of us spoke with one farmer in particular who tends his coffee plants with his sons; he told us that before he started growing coffee five years ago, his annual income was around 5,000 rupees per year, which roughly translates to $100. The first year he grew coffee, that number increased to 15,000 rupees, or roughly $300. The next year it was 20,000 ($400), then 30,000 ($600) the next year and 60,000 ($1,200) the following year. This year, in spite of a smaller yield, he expected to bring in 68,000 rupees (more than $1,350). That doesn't make him rich by anyone's measure, but it does allow him to plan for his future and send his sons to college. His life has been dramatically changed by coffee. A VALLEY CHANGED BY COFFEE I started in the city of Visakhapatnam in the Araku Valley, located just inland from the country's central east coast. The valley, which is in the Indian state Andra Pradesh, is home to a large number of indigenous tribal people who have settled there and make a living for themselves growing various crops. With the support of the Naandi Foundation—an Indian NGO dedicated to improving the lives of marginalized farmers throughout India— several thousand of the Adivasi (as they're known) have turned to growing and selling Arabica coffee. Each farmer in the valley has one acre of land to work, so individual production is quite small. But Naandi has helped these farmers organize into what is essentially one large co-op, and as a result they're able to sell their coffee more effectively. In an attempt to improve the quality of the coffee and incentivize the farmers, Naandi—in partnership with coffee-quality expert Sunalini Menon—has established the Araku Originals Awards. Each year they invite several guests representing coffee roasters and cafés from around the world to come to India, cup the finest coffees grown in the Araku Valley and meet the farmers who have produced them. This year I was part of that group, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the coffees offered, all of which were processed in a central facility using either a fully washed method or a "special process" that shares attributes with the pulped-natural process (wherein the skin is removed from the berry and the pulp is allowed to remain while the coffee is dried). The flavors in the coffee ranged from nutty, with strong walnut notes, to deep fruit and red wine mixed with dark chocolate. Cupping scores varied but fell primarily in the mid-80s. What separates the story of the Adivasi in the Araku Valley is the radical change happening in the growing community there NATIVE GROWERS: Several thousand Adivasi—indigenous tribal people in India's Araku Valley—grow Arabica coffee. And his story isn't unique. Thousands of tribal people in the Araku Valley have a future because of coffee, thanks in part to the efforts of the Naandi Foundation to support the sustainable growth of coffee and other crops in the region. Whether it's through the use of biodynamic fertilizers, experimentation with different varieties of coffee, encouragement to use various methods of shade or simply feeding hungry people, the foundation is working daily to improve people's lives. LARGE-SCALE STRUGGLES From the one-acre micro-farms of the Araku Valley, I traveled to the opposite side of India for a visit to the much larger plantations of Karnataka—a state that borders Andra Pradesh. My guides for the second half of my journey were the employees and associates of Karnataka Plantation Coffees, a green coffee supplier that has operations in Hillsboro, Ore. I was joined for this part of the trip by two biochemists who busied themselves with collecting soil samples at every plantation we visited, which they subsequently tested for a variety of micronutrients. As we drove from the city of Bangalore into the center of continued on page 50 freshcup.com October 2013 49