What Coffee Varieties Are Grown in India's Coffee Regions? Monsoon-Processed S795 Coffee Bean Flavor Profile

India's Four Major Coffee Varieties

Indian coffee may not be very familiar to many people. Today, let us join FrontStreet Coffee to learn about India's four major coffee varieties.

Kent

Kent is the earliest Arabica variety, selected by a British grower of the same name in the 1920s. Until the 1940s this variety remained popular in the planting community because it resists rust. It is grown in several regions today and is still renowned for its excellent cup quality.

S.795

This is by far the most popular Arabica variety released in the 1940s, with high yield, robust beans, excellent quality and relatively good tolerance of leaf rust. It was developed from Kents Arabica and is famous for its high quality. Even today S.795 remains a favorite among growers and is widely cultivated. It has a balanced cup with subtle mocha flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee's Indian Monsooned Malabar is of the S.795 variety, processed by the monsooning method. The coffee itself has very low acidity and a quite distinctive taste. It features rich caramel, raisin and herbal notes, with a mouthfeel somewhat like genmaicha (brown rice tea) and a berry-like aftertaste.

Cauvery

Commonly known as Catimor, Cauvery is a hybrid descendant of Caturra and Hybrido-de-Timor. Caturra is a natural mutation of the famous Bourbon variety, so Cauvery inherits Caturra's high yield and high quality along with the disease resistance of Hybrido-de-Timor.

Sln.9

Selection 9 is a hybrid derived from the Ethiopian Arabica series Tafarikela and Hybrido-de-Timor. Sln.9 inherits all of Tafarikela's excellent cup-quality characteristics. It won the Best Arabica Coffee Cup award at the "India Flavor - 2002 Cupping Competition" organized by the Indian Coffee Board.

Growing Regions

The traditional regions are the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The non-traditional regions include Andhra Pradesh and Odisha in the country's Eastern Ghats.

The southern plantations are the cradle of Indian coffee. They include Bababudangiris in Karnataka, known as the birthplace of Indian coffee. The Eastern Ghats and the northeastern states are newly developed coffee areas.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Indian coffee is best known for the monsooned style used in FrontStreet Coffee's Monsooned Malabar, which is the S.795 variety processed by the monsooning method for very low acidity and a distinctive cup: rich caramel, raisin and herbal notes, a mouthfeel that recalls genmaicha (brown rice tea) and a berry-like aftertaste. It is a striking contrast to the washed, fruit-forward coffees that dominate the specialty market.

If you enjoy exploring origins, FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopian range is the place to go next, since Ethiopia is the birthland of Arabica and home to countless native varieties. The entry-level washed Yirgacheffe delivers clear jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity; the town is a small settlement in southern Ethiopia where spring lingers all year, mist hangs in the air and the climate stays cool and humid, and the resulting cup is light and elegant with a tea-like body, drinking like a clean lemon tea. FrontStreet's Gedingding Cooperative coffee comes from the Worka area at the southeastern edge of Yirgacheffe and became an independent cooperative in 2012 with about 300 members; because the pulp is removed before drying, its citrus and lemon tones and elegant white florals come through very clearly.

For a fruitier natural, FrontStreet's Natural Red Cherry is sun-dried for two weeks until sugars and essence seep into the bean and moisture reaches 12% before the dried pulp, mucilage and parchment are scraped away, then density and color sorted, giving peach, cocoa, honey and lemon. FrontStreet's Flower Queen, from the Hambella area of Guji, Sidamo, is dried on raised beds for 21 days and turned regularly over 200 hectares, then hulled and sorted again, for a light fermented wine aroma with florals, citrus and mango and a syrupy, layered body. Also worth trying are FrontStreet's Sidamo Natural Hamasho, made mainly from the JARC 74-series disease-resistant varieties such as 74158 with perfume lemon, strawberry and starfruit notes, and FrontStreet's Kafa Forest, wild coffee grown between 1,400 and 2,100 meters under shade with white florals, bright lemon acidity and sweet orange and bergamot.