Of Coffee Beans and Pepper





 

Flame of the Forest - Butea Monosperma

After more than a year, and a stone the heavier, there was a culinary journey really worth writing home about. After almost an hour in an auto-rickshaw, zipping down the slops of the hills around Coorg, through coffee plantations and dense forest riddled with flowering trees, we arrived. This was a smaller plantation relative to the others around; more a summer retreat. The 10 acre property was cultivated with Arabica and Robusta coffee beans, some Cardamom and Pepper. The clusters of Pepper dangled from vines twisted around trunks of the Oak trees, in the shade of which the coffee flourished.



Piper Nirgum

Funny thing about Pepper - Black and White Pepper is the fruit of the same plant, picked at different stages of ripeness. I always thought that they came from different ones - because they taste so different and you often read recipes that call for both together. Black Pepper is allowed to dry on the plant itself, giving it a spicier flavour. Pepper is the original spice in Indian food. Chilies only came to India with the Portuguese, the the 1200s if I am not mistaken (not going to  run a Google check). Of all Indian Cuisines, Pepper is most abundantly used in the South. In fact, Coorg, even Chettinad, cuisine is best defined by their generous use of this spice. Pepper gives you a much more balanced, wholer, heat and this, I think, gives it a stand-out flavour. Not always the case with Chilies.

 

 

 

  

 



Coffee Plant

One major disagreement I have with the way they do things down South is to do with the way Coffee is consumed. I am a 'black coffee, no sugars' man myself and I have a tough time digesting the concept of filter coffee the way they do it. I really don't see the point of harping on and on about how great the coffee from the region is when you are going to bugger its body, flavour and aroma with the copious amounts of milk and sugar. Too sweet for my liking, but I did enjoy a few glasses. More a dessert if you ask me.

 

 

 

Coffee - ready for picking

The Arabica coffee fetches the farmers a better price than the Robusta variety. Not sure which was cultivated more widely. The plants are pretty similar, but spend a couple of days around a plantation and you can tell the difference - something in the leaves.

 

The smaller plantations sell their beans as they are to the larger plantations, that have process plants. The plantations are very clever in their ability to generate cash flows all year around. While Coffee is indeed the main crop the other spices that co-habit ensure that incomes are not only confined to the coffee harvest months. Though I was there during the harvest season, I am told that the plantation in full bloom is a sight to behold, with white flowers splattered till the eye can see.

 

A few hours walking around the plantation is enough to work up a substantial appetite for a feast of Pork! - watch this space.