What lies ahead for Indian coffee?

The recent World Coffee Conference in Bengaluru highlighted how speciality growers and artisanal roasters are discovering the rich flavours and nuances of Indian beans

There was a time when Indian coffee was dismissed as a shy bean, a filler coffee, remembers Sunalini Menon, the president of Coffeelab Limited, a Bengaluru-based coffee sensory evaluation laboratory and research organisation. Not anymore.

India’s first woman coffee taster, Sunalini has been assessing coffee for almost fifty years. “Now they are looking at India and seeing a sustainable, traceable coffee which can no longer be pushed under the table,” she says.

The success of the 5th edition of the World Coffee Conference (WCC), which was held at Bangalore Palace in September, is a testament to this mounting interest in Indian coffee. “We had purchasers from all over the world, European machine manufacturers, traders of imported coffee machines from China and Europe, coffee consultants—in other words, WCC was a coffee community haven,” recalls Dinshay Luthiya, the founder of Bai Mu Dan, Pune, who also helped design the coffee program at Veronica’s in Mumbai.

Not only did WCC prove to be a forum to network with various stakeholders in the coffee industry, but it also offered an opportunity to taste coffees that he had never heard of before, adds Dinshay, who believes that the event opened new horizons for all Indian coffee growers, roasters, and exporters.

According to Dr Mandappa I.M., Divisional Head, Coffee Quality at Coffee Board, India, which organised the WCC, the event had visitors from over 80 countries and saw 10-12,000 daily walk-ins on average. “This conference was a huge eye-opener. People are really noticing Indian coffee, which is very encouraging for the entire sector,” he says. “It is high time that India is on the coffee map.”

So, what lies ahead in the world of Indian coffee? This is what the coffee experts and aficionados across the country say.

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