Traditionally Crafted

The harvest is over. The cherries are in. Now begins one of the most important — and most under-appreciated — stages of making great coffee. Processing. This is where the character of every bean is shaped, protected and preserved. And on our estate, it is done the way it has always been done — by hand, with patience, and without cutting corners.

Sorting — The First Decision

Before anything else, every cherry is sorted. The freshly harvested cherries are immersed in water — ripe, healthy cherries sink to the bottom, while defective, unripe or damaged ones float to the surface and are removed. What remains is only the finest of what was picked. This simple step sets the standard for everything that follows.

Two Paths — Wet and Dry

Not all our coffee is processed the same way. Depending on the bean and the character we want to bring out, we use either the wet process or the dry process. Each produces a distinctly different cup.

The Wet Process

In the wet process, the outer skin of the cherry is removed using a pulping machine — one of the very few pieces of equipment involved in our processing. What remains is the bean, still covered in a sticky layer called mucilage.

The beans are then transferred to fermentation tanks, where natural enzymes and microbes slowly break down the mucilage over twenty four to forty eight hours. This fermentation step is not just a technicality — it is one of the most important flavour-shaping moments in the entire process. The duration, the temperature, the conditions — all of it influences what eventually ends up in your cup.

Once fermentation is complete, the beans are thoroughly washed with clean water, removing all traces of the fermented mucilage. What remains is clean, bright parchment coffee — ready to be dried.

The Dry Process

In the dry process, the cherry is left whole and intact. No pulping, no fermentation, no washing. The entire cherry — skin, pulp and all — is laid out to dry slowly in the sun. This allows the bean inside to absorb the natural sugars and fruit flavours of the cherry as it dries, producing a coffee that is fuller bodied, naturally sweet and deeply complex.

Sun Drying — Patience Above All

Whether wet or dry processed, all our coffee is sun dried on the estate. The beans are spread out in thin, even layers and left to dry slowly under the Coorg sun — turned and raked by hand at regular intervals to ensure even drying and prevent over-fermentation.

This is not a fast process. Drying takes anywhere from ten days to three weeks depending on the weather, the bean and the process used. There are no shortcuts here. The beans dry when they are ready — not before. Our workers monitor the drying beds every day, reading the beans the way they read the estate — through years of knowledge and an instinct that cannot be taught from a book.

Hand Sorting

Once dried, the beans are hand sorted — removing any defects, inconsistencies or beans that did not meet the standard set at the beginning. This final pass is done entirely by eye and by hand, by workers who know exactly what they are looking for. It is painstaking work. It is also essential work.

Why It Matters

Processing is where coffee either lives up to its potential or falls short of it. A perfectly grown, perfectly harvested cherry can still produce a disappointing cup if the processing is careless or rushed. On our estate, it never is.

Every step — from the first sort to the final day of drying — is carried out with the same care and intention as everything else we do. Because the coffee in your cup deserves nothing less.