Here it is: Our autumn headliner, selected to help us ease into cooler days while supporting a remarkable producer in India. 'Harvest' is a special anoxic washed coffee just rolling with apple crumble, pecan and raisin notes. We recommend brewing a mug of it and relaxing under a nice tree!
This coffee also carries a new, cosy label colour and includes a seasonal illustration card from our beloved pal Jackie Morris, glimpsed above.
Here's more about this Harvest special:
Kerehaklu is a stunning and biodiverse coffee plantation in the Southern Ghats region of Karnataka in South India, run by father and son team Ajoy and Pranoy Thipaiah. (Our colleague Will has visited twice, and wrote about the wildlife and the agronomy here.) Pranoy strongly prefers washed process coffees (though Kerehaklu also produces some great naturals) and this lot is actually anoxic washed, meaning the coffee first went through fermentation in an oxygen-reduced environment prior to washing. One way to kick-start this initial fermentation is by adding liquid from another active fermentation — often referred to as Mossto or Mosto, literally meaning grape juice — and Pranoy has been doing this since 2023. In short, this is an innovative coffee.
Will was in India this year just as the arabica harvest was coming to an end, the first time he was able to cup coffees that we would receive later on. There's nothing like the sparkle of fresh crop coffee cupped at origin, and these coffees have held up nicely since then: They're tasting bright, sweet and delicious, and we've purchased more lots from Kerehaklu than ever before.
Kerehaklu is spread across 250 acres and has been chemical-free since 2016. The biodiversity there is incredible, with macaques, parrots, snakes, deer, civets, and boars regularly roaming, and even some occasional tigers. It has been run by the Thipaiah family for five generations. Today, Ajoy mainly looks after the growing and agronomy side and while Pranoy manages processing.
They primarily grow arabica coffee, but also two other species, canephora and liberica. Some plants on the estate are more than 100 years old, so the land and plant matter are well adapted to one another. Most of the varietals are Indian cultivars called 'Selection' — these are hybridised from other varieties to grow well in their environment. The Thipaiahs keep a plant nursery where they look after young plants from seed, including various 'Selection' arabicas, Obata, and SL28. They also have lots of avocados and pepper vines, both of which they produce to a very high standard and sell.
The estate is home to many beautiful cluster fig trees (some estimated to be 400 years old) that grow around other trees slowly and eventually engulf them. The cluster figs aren't particularly tasty to humans, but they are much beloved by the many birds that live there, and the birds' guano is an excellent fertiliser for the coffee. These fig trees are the secondary canopy, with the highest canopy coming primarily from citrus trees. The ample shade means the coffee can grow and mature slowly. As a result, the output on an estate like this is much, much lower than more intensive "monocrop" coffee farms, but if you take a wider look at the total sum of outputs from all the crops, they are incredibly productive. This coffee is a real investment in the environment — a seasonal delight!
Elevation: 1200 Meters above Sea Level
Varietal: Selection 5b.
Cup score: 86
Price paid per kg: £11.50
Process: Anoxic washed
