Shanteyanda cup: Ballachanda, Mandetira register victory

Sports

Ballachanda, Mandetira, Mandeyanda and Kariberavanda registered victory in the matches at the ongoing Shanteyanda Cup Hockey Tournament here on Monday.

Ballachanda won against Cherumadanda by 4-0 goals. Mandetira defeated Kutterira by 4-0 and Karineravanda beat Kandera by 4-0. Mandeyanda beat Mukkatira by 4-0 and Sannuvanda defeated Kalengada by 2-0. Kokkanda won against Deyanda by 4-0.

Macharanda beat Bariyanda by 2-0. Pemmanda defeated Mollera by 6-0 and Titamada beat Chenanda by 1-0.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> District / DHNS – Madikeri, April 26th, 2016

Eyes on Poovamma at Indian GP

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

The domestic athletics season is set to kick off with the first Indian Grand Prix at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Sunday, with the focus firmly on Olympic qualification.

Ten events for men and nine for women comprise the card in the one-day meet, which hopes to present an opportunity for a clutch of athletes to meet the qualifying norms for the Olympic Games.

For those who have already made the grade — 22 of them have attained the marks so far — the Grand Prix has little to offer, with their events — barring men’s and women’s shot put and men’s discus throw — not part of the programme.

Many of the leading lights are abroad as part of their preparations, including a clutch of jumpers who are training in South Africa.

Among those who are here, 400M runners MR Poovamma and Arokia Rajiv will be looking to kick off their quest for an Olympic berth in strong fashion. With the Asian Athletics Association deciding to cancel the Asian Grand Prix series this year, the two quartermilers have to rely on the domestic competitions, including next week’s Federation Cup, to meet the standards.

Poovamma will have to time 52.20 or better to make it to Rio while Arokia Rajiv, who had a very good last season, needs to touch 45.40.

Discus thrower Krishna Poonia, the first Indian woman to win a gold in athletics at the Commonwealth Games, will be making a comeback in New Delhi. Poonia, who finished sixth in the 2012 London Olympics, is returning to action after a gap of two years, post-surgery. The standard in women’s discus is 61 metres.

The javelin throwers, who are training under Australian coach Gary Calvert, will also be in focus while M A Prajusha and Renjith Maheswari lead the list among jumpers.

Events on Sunday: Men: 100M, 400M, 1500M, 3000M, Long jump, Triple jump; High jump; Shot put; Javelin, Discus.

Women: 100M, 400M, 1500M, 3000M, Long jump, Triple jump, Shot put, Javelin throw, Discus.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Sports / by Agencies / New Delhi – April 23rd, 2016

The New Brew Strategy

Business & Economy, Coffee News, World Opinion

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Coffee is cool, and Indian coffee is cooler still. That’s the message a brave new breed of young coffee growers are taking to the world.

Youngsters with a family background in coffee, they are taking their products to the next level – incorporating quality produce with sustainable agriculture and state-of-theart production techniques and marketing. To them, the customer is king – and they are pleased to customise their coffees, reach out to educate and grow their customer base. Their final desired outcome is to make Indian coffee a thing of beauty at home and abroad. Meet some of the players.

Rishwin Devaya | 26
Riverside Coffee, Coorg

“A planter’s approach is usually to just maximise yield, but I am experimenting to control the end quality. I want to add value to Coorg coffee;I’m in it for the long run”

It was while Rishwin Devaya was working for a wine company that he realised he wanted to return to his roots to create a brand of world-class coffee from Riverside, his own 80-acre coffee estate in Siddapur, Coorg, along the Cauvery river. As he watched his employers go through the process of cultivating grapes, producing and selling wines, he realised he could do the same.

“My family has been growing coffee in Coorg since 1898, but we’ve always sold the beans to large-scale producers. In fact as I thought about it, I realised that very few coffee drinkers truly understand much about their preferred types of coffee (Arabica, Robusta) or different types of roasts.” He quit his job and started processing the 60 tonnes of coffee grown in his estate.

“I started sending out samples on a small scale to restaurants in Bangalore last year. I want my own strong brand, and to focus on customising coffee, so different restaurants get their own individual blends.” Devaya’s single origin coffee is UTZ and Wood certified, and has been launched in custom- designed tins in three variants – a 100 per cent Arabica, a 50/50 Arabica/ Robusta and the popular filter coffee blend which incorporates chicory.

“From April onwards, my coffee will be available on my website, besides gourmet stores. For my next phase I plan to offer blends and grinds according to customer requests — the ultimate customised coffee. What I love about coffee is that each person has his own way of enjoying it. I want people to understand how simple it is to make a really good cup.” Devaya recently launched Riverside Coffee with a tasting event at Red Fork, where he demonstrated different coffee-drinking styles for guests, a kind of show-and-tell on coffee.

This covered the entire production process, from picking the ripe ‘cherry’, to the pulping and washing stage, to getting the ‘parchment’, followed by hulling and polishing to get the green bean and finally grading (AA, A, B or peaberry, while BBB – blacks, browns and bits – are usually sold in bulk to make instant coffee.) “A planter’s approach is usually to just maximise yield, but I’m experimenting to control the end quality. I want to add value to Coorg coffee; I’m in it for the long run.”www.riversidecoffee.in

Tejini Kariappa | 28
Halli Berri Coffee, Chikmagalur

“We sold our coffee in handwritten aluminium foil packets to start with. Then the name was suggested by my sister and my mother liked it, saying, ‘We should be proudly Coorg.”

Tejini Kariappa’s idea of creating her coffee brand Halli Berri happened because “we were giving away too much free coffee,” she says. Her family-run coffee enterprise is based in Chikmagalur and is headed by her mother and herself — India’s first all-women run coffee business.

Her estate, Kambihalli, in the foothills of Chikmagalur’s Bababudan hills, has been in the family for generations, with Kariappa also running a PR firm, Estrada, in Mumbai. Halli means village in Kannada, and when juxtaposed with ‘berry’ makes the name sound ethnic, meaning ‘the village berry.’ Halli Berri grew almost organically, as visitors at the estate café run by her mother started asking for fresh-ground coffee powder to buy and take home.

Kariappa explains, “We sold our coffee in handwritten aluminium foil packets to start with. Then the name was suggested by my sister and my mother liked it. ‘We should be proudly Coorg,’ she said.” So Halli Berri was born and now remains a frontrunner in India’s single-origin coffee story. Today Kariappa sells a single variant full-bodied 100 per cent Arabica coffee made from premium graded beans under the Halli Berri brand. She prices it affordably, “in fact not much more than instant coffee,” she points out.

The brand is Rainforest Alliance certified, one of the highest certifications worldwide. She also runs a CSR initiative, ‘Be Berri Conscious’ tied in with her coffee business – it is mandatory for all her workers to send their children to school, and families are given free meals. Halli Berri also supports wildlife initiatives — tiger conservation and 296 species of migratory birds in the estate. “I want this to be a legacy for my children and their children,” she says. The estate also offers a responsible luxury’ homestay experience.

Juggling two different lifestyles has been tough, more so given the innumerable subsidies, certification and licences a business needs for survival.But Kariappa finds the journey “interesting… Indian coffee must get its due recognition. And the youth in India should realise that Indian coffee is cool. This (coffee) has really been my life from the start – so you could say I’m trying to start a revolution.” halliberri.com
________________________________________________________________

EXPERT SPEAK

“Indian single estate coffee is an idea whose time has come. The growth of India’s coffee story has been generational. Earlier generations saw coffee as a commodity, pooled to sell so there was no individual identity. For today’s new generation, whom I call ‘marketpreneurs’, marketing is important. They are more passionate in their approach.

It’s not about production alone now — there are value adds, customised blends, quality packaging, niche brands with back stories happening along with the additional benefit of e-commerce. This is excellent.

However, the new generation must be aware of a few factors. They must not ape the biggies — the Tata Coffees or Unilevers — but focus on the ‘small is beautiful’ dictum. They must also concentrate on physical distribution of their product, not only the virtual via e-commerce. And they need to focus on quality, not get overwhelmed by only branding.

Finally, customisation divides markets into choice segments: do this with scale in mind, don’t create nano-niches which are unsustainable by themselves. This is the way ahead to lift Indian coffee to world recognition”

-Harish Bijoor, coffee expert & brand consultant
_________________________________________________________________

Abhijit Shetty | 30, & Advith Shetty | 33
Seven Beans Coffee Company, Chikmagalur

“India is the sixth largest coffee producer in the world, but two-thirds of our coffee is exported to Europe, where the beans are roasted and sold; no one knows that’s Indian coffee”

Civil engineers by profession, the Shetty brothers, joint managing directors at Seven Beans Coffee Company, realised early on that their heart lay in producing the best coffees sourced from their five estates in Chikmagalur (their premium estate Woddaegudda is 450 acres and Rainforest Alliance certified). “We grew up spending summers on the estate — here coffee was grown but sold to coffee houses to process and sell,” says Advith, who handles sales.

They decided to leverage their engineering skills to develop their business, raising the bar through research and export. “India is the sixth largest coffee producer in the world, but two thirds of our coffee is exported to Europe, where the beans are roasted and sold under different international brand names. There, they command exorbitant prices, except no one knows that’s Indian coffee,” says Abhijit, who looks after production and operations, adding that they wanted to create a globally recognised brand. They incorporated Seven Beans Coffee in 2013, a complete bean-to-cup enterprise, and started the search for a global partner.

They zeroed in on Dr Dante Cagliari, a noted Italian master roaster, and the association recognises Seven Beans for a unique USP in the custom- made single estate coffee market. Seven Beans pre-blends and then roasts their coffee at their own customised Chikmagalur roastery, grinding and packaging both whole coffee beans, powder and capsules. They have begun exporting three variants under their own brand names — Mishta (70/30 Arabica/Robusta), Urja (60/40), and Eka (50/50) — and the packaging is deliberately very Indian. They also import signature Italian blends by Cagliari. Abhijit explains the historical growth of coffee, “The early 1900s saw the patenting of technology forinstant coffee. It was followed by consumers, especially those in the US, seeking better quality and asking about origin; terms like ‘fair trade’ became important. The most recent trend saw the term ‘artisanal coffee’ coined. Artisanal producers control every step of coffee production, from bean to cup.”

Seven Beans started production in 2015 and now sells its custom coffees to corporate offices and restaurants, as well as online and in gourmet stores. They offer end to end services, including renting and sale of imported Italian coffee machines. Aiming to bring the perfect cup to consumers, they offer barista training, from grinding coffee to frothing milk. “Indian consumers learn quick, want quality and are aspirational, therefore they are aware of artisanal Indian coffee,” adds Abhijit. sevenbeans.co

Meet the others

Specialised coffee brands like Flying Squirrel (flyingsquirrel.in) and Blue Tokai (bluetokaicoffee. com) have been making their presence felt among coffee lovers in India with customised coffee straight from estates in Chikmagalur and Coorg, sold online and instore. Other players include the Indian Bean Company (theindianbean. com) and Bengaluru’s Estatecraft coffee (estatecraft.in).

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Business> News / by Ruma Singh / April 25th, 2016

Sorted head, Uthappa’s secret

Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Sports

RobinUthappaKF25apr2016

Robin Uthappa, who has sparkled in the early round of matches, has put down his run of form to an uncluttered mind.

“I think a lot goes with feeling about the way I bat,” the KKR batsman-keeper said. “I feel very sorted about what my game plan is. There are no doubts, so there is a huge sense of clarity in my head. I am not worried if my technique is okay or not because I am constantly feeling good, having worked on my technique.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport / April 22nd, 2016

City gets ‘plant a tree’ message on Earth Day

Agriculture, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives / Environment, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Nature

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Tree plantation and workshops on saving the planet marked the World Earth Day in Bengaluru on Friday.

In Haralur, Hennur and other places, citizens planted saplings of different trees while a composting activity was held at the Bangalore Scottish School in JP Nagar where students were given demonstration on converting wet waste into compost.

Environmentalist Vijay Nishant visited MEG Centre in Ulsoor to check the status of trees that were in bad shape and treat them, going with the theme of World Earth Day, ‘Plant a tree, save a sin from Thee’.

He said: “Two trees here are suffering from fungal infection. Since it’s summer, termites start attacking the bark of trees and weakening them.”

On Saturday, the nonprofit ‘Save Kodagu’, with the support of Kodava Samaj, Lions Club Kodigehalli, Coral Waters and Rescue Roadside Vehicle Assistance, will hold a bike rally from Bengaluru to Madikeri to spread the message of conserving the environment and saving Kodagu from deforestation.

The nonprofit expects more than 200 people to take part in the rally, after which a memorandum will be submitted to the Kodagu deputy commissioner to save the forest from developmental projects.

Concern expressed

The NGO expressed concern over chopping of one lakh trees to make way for high-tension wire in Kodagu. In other programmes, the Green Path Organic Store held a ‘Bhoomi Habba’ and the Geological Society of India and the Ministry of Earth Sciences held a panel discussion on ‘Trees for the earth’, in which environmentalist Yellappa Reddy and other dignitaries took part.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> City / Bengaluru – DHNSD, April 23rd, 2016

Famous faeces: the story behind the civet-poo coffee craze

Coffee News, World Opinion

There’s a scene in the movie The Bucket List where Jack Nicholson’s billionaire character realises kopi luwak – the “fancy” coffee he insists on drinking – is made from the faeces of a cat-like creature.

“You’re shitting me?” he says. “Cats beat me to it,” his terminally ill mate replies. Both men laugh until tears stream down their faces and then his friend ticks: “laugh until I cry” off his bucket list.

Scatological jokes aside, there is a well-documented dark side to kopi luwak, which is also known as civet coffee.

In February, civet coffee plantation tours were ranked among the world’s top 10 cruel animal attractions by World Animal Protection.

“There is now a growing civet coffee plantation tourism industry in Indonesia where tourists visit caged civet cats and sample the coffee,” says a report by the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research. “This is causing more and more civets to be caged and abused.”

Kopi luwak is made from coffee cherries that have passed through the intestines of a common palm civet (known as a luwak in Indonesia); a small, nocturnal carnivore. The enzymes break down the beans, which when roasted, create a smooth, less bitter brew, according to some coffee connoisseurs.

(Not everyone is a fan. The Washington Post’s food critic Tim Carman wrote of his experience: “Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn’t finish it.)

World Animal Protection says that when civet droppings are collected from the wild, no cruelty is involved. Indeed the history of kopi luwak is purported to date back to the Dutch colonial era, when native coffee plantation workers were forbidden to pick coffee for their own use. They discovered undigested beans in civet droppings and created their own aromatic brew.

However in recent decades the coffee – with its irresistibly weird back story – has become a global sensation, with wild-sourced beans fetching prices of up to £2000 ($3700) a kilo.

The massive international demand and exorbitant prices led to civets being caged to increase productivity and create commercially viable quantities of civet poo.

“Caged civets are encouraged to gorge on an unbalanced diet of coffee cherries,” the World Animal Protection report says. The process has been compared to fattening geese to create foie gras but with a lot more caffeine. “Many show signs of great stress, including pacing and self-mutilation. This unnatural captivity and forced feeding results in injuries, disease and poor nutrition.”

But despite their famous faeces, little is known about the common palm civet itself, according to PhD student Peter Roberts, a lecturer in animal care in Britain. “How can we look after the species in captivity without knowing how they will behave in the wild?”

Roberts aims to collect data on the habitat use, behaviour and estimated population of civets around the village of Cipaganti in Java for the PhD he is doing at Oxford Brookes University. He hopes his research will add vital information to what is known about the ecology of the species and contribute to better animal husbandry and management policies.

However, because funding invariably goes to rare species – the civet is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a species of “least concern” – his PhD is largely self-funded. It’s been a painstaking process. A recent attempt to crowd-source 10 camera traps raised a paltry £15 in 56 days.

Meanwhile, the trade in civets is increasing dramatically in Indonesia. Civets have become a popular exotic pet in Indonesia and there has been a rise in the popularity of kopi luwak and civet coffee farms in Java and Bali.

The problem, Roberts says, is that no-one has been able to quantify what damage this trade is doing to wild populations. “More wild research is desperately needed.”

Although common palm civets are not protected in Indonesia, trade is regulated through an annual quota system. In 2016, a total of 250 common palm civets can be captured for domestic use and 225 for export from just four provinces in Indonesia.

Eko Arifyanto from the Biodiversity Conservation Agency says this is to keep the balance of the number of animals in the wild. There has not been a request for one permit this year.

However the sheer numbers of civets for sale in Javan and Balinese animal markets alone suggest this quota system is simply not being enforced. “It is difficult to know because we have very limited human resources while our coverage area is quite big,” Eko says.

When Fairfax Media visited Pasar Satria, a market in Denpasar, young civets were available for 450,000 Rupiah (about $45) each.

Author and former coffee trader Tony Wild believes he spawned a monster. Wild claims to be the first person to bring a kilogram of kopi luwak to the west in 1991, while working as a coffee director for Taylors of Harrogate. The product, with its “certain repulsive charm”, became a media sensation beyond his wildest dreams.

However two decades later, while researching his book Coffee: A Dark History, Wild learnt civets were being poached and caged all over south-east Asia and force-fed coffee cherries.

In 2013 he started the Facebook campaign Kopi Luwak: Cut the Crap. He also played a key role in a BBC investigation of animal cruelty on civet farms in Sumatra.

“I don’t think a large number of consumers have been put off by the life of the animal – kopi luwak is pretty much everywhere in Indonesia, and I think you will find probably the same in south-east Asia,” he says.

Wild does believe there is a sustainable business model in genuine wild kopi luwak.

In Gayo, for example, a famous coffee producing region at the tip of Sumatra, Anasryta has been gathering civet faeces foraged by collectors for more than 20 years. Gabah (the cleaned coffee beans) are worth 80,000 rupiah ($8) a kilogram. “You can tell the difference, which kopi luwak is from the wild and from the farm,” Anasryta says.

“The wild has a richer taste, luwak in the wild eats all kinds of stuff, skins of trees, fruits.”

However many kopi luwak producers are now savvy to the controversy around caged civets. “You will find most kopi luwak is now marketed as “genuine wild” kopi luwak,” Wild says. “There’s really only one way of telling and that is having a personal relationship with the producers and going to the plantation and even then it’s difficult to prove.”

Coffee certifiers Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified – the world’s leading label for sustainable coffee production – no longer certify coffee producers that use caged civets or other animals.

And in June 2015, Indonesia introduced standards for luwak coffee production, that emphasised the civets were not to be starved, harmed, scared or depressed.

“We welcome the Indonesian government recognising there is an issue, however if they truly wish to stop the suffering then all caged production of kopi luwak must be prohibited,” says World Animal Protection’s Joanna Toole. “There is no justification to take these animals from the wild and keep them in confinement for years on end to produce a luxury coffee for tourists.”

Bali Geo is a kopi luwak cafe in Ubud that opened several weeks ago.

The cafe has three civets on site, but the owners say they are for display only, and will eventually be released. “We buy our supplies from a luwak farm up in Kintamani,” says co-owner I. Nyoman Lanus.

“I understand they have about 70 luwak in cages. I know they keep them in good condition. One luwak per cage, so they won’t fight each other. They would only be fed coffee beans around three times a week. Luwak will die if they are only fed with coffee.”

Nyoman says the coffee cherries are placed in a bowl and the civet is allowed to pick the best. The rest are sold back to the coffee farmers.

“For anybody to claim they have a steady flow of wild luwak coffee is impossible,” Nyoman says. “A mixture of wild and luwak farm, that’s more likely. Like what we sell here.”

The story Famous faeces: the story behind the civet-poo coffee craze first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

source: http://www.esperanceexpress.com / The Esperance Express / Home> News> Latest News / April 15th, 2016

Coffee Growers Feel the Heat

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Coffee, Kodagu (Coorg), Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature

Somwarpet :

The rising temperatures and a lack of rain have caused a desperate situation for coffee growers.

According to an estimate, nearly 30 per cent of the coffee plantations received blossom showers during March and April, while the remaining 70 per cent are yet to receive the first rainfall.

This situation might have a bearing on the prices of coffee and pepper in the coming season.

Last year, the total production of coffee in the country was 3.5 lakh tonnes while the district produced around 1.6 lakh tonnes of coffee, on an area of 1.10 lakh hectares. According to sources, this year, coffee production will be reduced by at least 20 per cent, due to insufficient and delayed rain, as well as rising temperatures.

Madikeri Coffee Board deputy director Ananth Kumar said delayed rain adversely affected young coffee plants and crop this year.

He said the Coffee Board will conduct pre-monsoon surveys in the month of May every year, to ascertain the production.

He said growers should maintain shade in estates, as temperatures had risen to 32 degrees in some parts of the district, causing dryness of soil.

In some dry areas where annual rainfall is below 50 inches, young plants wilted and died, even under the shade of trees.

In Banavara, Abburkatte, Yedavare and Yedavanadu, coffee growers are worried about crops wilting and dying. Coffee grower M L Ravi from Aigoor said growers are in distress owing to falling prices of coffee, and that delayed rains have added to their woes.

He said last year 50 kg Arabica coffee sold at Rs 10,000-Rs 10,200, but now, the price had fallen to Rs 8,200.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Coovercolly Indresh / April 22nd, 2016

Naidu markets Araku coffee at women’s meet

Coffee News

Vijayawada :

Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday turned out to be a brand ambassador of Araku Valley Coffee at a national conference of tribal women sarpanches here.

He saw to it that the organic brew was served to Union rural development minister Chowdari Birender Singh, minister for tribal welfare Jual Oram and Sudarshan Bhagath, union minister of justice and social empowerment and let them taste it to their content right on the dais.

Even as the programme anchor invited Birender Singh to address, Naidu intervened with a plea to let the minister finish his last sip. The CM appealed to all the 3000-odd women sarpanches who came from 10 states to promote the organic brand of Araku coffee.

It may be recalled that Prime Minister Narendar Modi felt bowled over by the rich aroma of the Araku brew at the International Fleet Review (IFR) in Visakhapatnam in February last.

Araku coffee is India’s first tribal growers organic brand launched in the Araku valley in 2007. The brand has got high demand in the US, UK and parts of European Union nations.

Naidu informed that the coffee production in the Araku Valley was increased by 1 lakh tons to 8 lakh with an increase of coffee plantation area by 1 lakh acres.

The coffee plantations helped the tribals increase their income levels with each family receiving at least Rs 3,000 per year by raising plantations and selling the produce.

Chandrababu said 13 products of Araku Valley including coffee and pepper have received organic certificates recently.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home / TNN / April 19th, 2016

Delayed blossom showers, rising mercury rob coffee crop of aroma

Business & Economy, Coffee News, Coffee, Kodagu (Coorg)

CoffeeKF20apr2016

Bengaluru :

The unusually high temperatures and the delay in arrival of pre-monsoon or blossom showers could shrink the robusta coffee crop for the 2016-17 season, starting October.

Growers in the key regions of Coorg and Chikmagalur are concerned over the delay in pre-monsoon showers, crucial for blossoming of the coffee floral buds, and fear that it could impact robusta output by up to a fourth.

Blossom showers and subsequent backing showers are crucial for a good crop. Traditionally, the robusta and arabica areas should receive pre-monsoon showers by March 15 and April 15, respectively, for a good blossom.

“The blossom shower has been very sporadic and scanty this year and it is definitely going to affect the crop, both robusta and arabica,” said Baba PS Bedi, Chairman of the Karnataka Planters’ Association.

“Small growers, who cannot afford to take up sprinkler irrigation, are going to be hit hard,” Bedi said, adding that the planters’ association will soon urge the State government to take up cloud seeding to create artificial rain in the key growing regions.

Water crisis
Though most of the robusta area is irrigated, with growers deploying sprinklers to irrigate their estates without waiting for the blossom showers, the lack of sufficient water storage this year has turned out to be a cause for concern.

Two back-to-back droughts triggered by successive deficient monsoons have created water stress thereby affecting the availability for irrigation, Bedi added.

“The delay in blossom showers and the prevailing unusually high temperatures across all the growing regions is a real cause of worry. It will have a significant impact on the crop loss, but it is too early to quantify the impact,” said Y Raghuramulu, Director of the Balehonnur-based Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI).

The Coffee Board is expected to take up crop assessment sometime in mid-May.

In addition, the depleting shade pattern in some areas is aggravating the problem this year, Raghuramulu added.

“The situation is terrible in South Coorg. With temperatures ruling 2-3 degrees higher than normal, there is a fear of coffee plants dying in some areas,” said N Bose Mandanna, a planter in Suntikoppa, near Madikeri. About 30 per cent of the robusta area is impacted by the delayed rainfall, he added.

“The overall situation is not comfortable. Though it has rained in some pockets, the quantum of rainfall is not sufficient. The water stress and high temperatures will affect the blossom, thereby impacting the crop,” said Nishant Gurjer, a planter in Chikmagalur.

Plants under pressure
Another factor that could affect the output this year is stressed out plants. “In the last two years, we have been picking some good crop. As a result, the plants are relatively stressed and the output could be impacted,” Gurjer added.

The Coffee Board has estimated the 2015-16 crop’s output at 3.5 lakh tonnes, a 7 per cent increase over the previous year’s 3.27 lakh tonnes.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Businessline.com / Home> Economy> Agri Business / Vishwanath Kulkarni / Bengaluru – April 19th, 2016

Spilling the Beans of the Bitter Brew

Coffee News

There is a chance that Sunalini Menon is addicted to her work but there’s a compelling reason for it: she is Asia’s first woman coffee taster. Menon’s affair with Coffea Arabica and Coffea Robusta began when she was a college-going girl. No wonder, Bengaluru-based Menon, who later founded her own company Coffee Lab, likens the coffee bean to that of spreading wisdom, teaching her humbleness, perfection, passion and friendliness.

At a time when women were still trying to cement their place in the social order of things, Menon was miles ahead of the same. She completed her schooling from Good Shepherd Convent and broke the record by securing first position in BSc at the Women’s Christian College. While pursuing her master’s in Science, she got a paper published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, a rare feat for a non-medical professional. After completing her PG, she applied for the position of a coffee taster and moved ahead in the selection rounds. Though her appointment was objected to, on the basis of her being a woman, Menon finally made it as an assistant cupper in the Coffee Board.

An unusual profession it may be, but it comes with its own set of unique challenges. “If you are a professional cupper, you need to preserve your palate and I do so by avoiding spicy food, alcohol and tobacco. I ensure that I am always in good health to be able to taste and identify the subtle nuances of coffee,” says Menon. By that same logic, ice cream too is a strict no-no for me.

There are other senses to be employed as well. Menon shares that one needs to use their eyes to see size, the degree of roast, and colour of the beans; while the sense of smell comes handy in knowing the green beans, roasted beans, coffee brew and processing of the coffee. The sense of touch helps in understanding the strain of coffee beans, while the sense of sound in measuring the right temperature —when you roast the coffee beans, they will crack or pop at certain temperatures.

Over and above, a good cupper comes equipped with an innate acuity of taste, intense training, experience and exposure to coffees from around the world, repeated calibrations of the palate with global tasters, good memory, fine concentration skills and most importantly, the ability to communicate what one has experienced in the palate.

Sunalini Menon
Sunalini Menon

Menon quit the Coffee Board in 1995, to set up her company Coffee Lab in 1997, which provides a whole range of services—right from evaluation, certification to advisory. Coffee Lab, which won the Hidden Treasure Award in 2006 by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE), is now developing brands for green coffee beans. “Flavours in coffee are very diverse. You could have sugar browning flavours such as chocolate, caramel, nuts, malt and vanilla; dry distillation flavours such as spices of pepper, clove, thyme; medicinal such as camphor; resinous such as black currant; or enzymatic flavours such as herbal, floral, citrus, berries, legumes etc,” elaborates Menon.

Tasting not less than 100 samples per day, Menon says: “Some coffees around the world possess very distinctive floral notes, some have blueberry flavours, some with intense citrus flavours of oranges and lemons, besides red and green apple.” She is also the proud recipient of the 2014 Alfred Peet Passionate Cup Award, conferred by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) during their 26th annual exposition and conference at Seattle.

When asked about any coffee buying tip, she quickly replies: “One needs to look at whether the coffee is dark-roasted or medium-roasted. A medium-roasted coffee will have a balanced taste, while a dark-roasted one will have a strong mouth feel, but with bitter edges. To make the perfect blend the proportion of powder-chikri (chicory) is 70-30 and also the freshness of say an hour of the decoction is important.” But the best advice is saved for the last. “Coffee means friendship. If you have coffee with someone, you become friends with them,” concludes a smiling Menon.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> LifeStyle> Food / by Sujitha J / April 16th, 2016