In Karnataka, a region responsible for over half of India’s coffee production, Indian coffee is undergoing a period of expansion and innovation.
BY MICHAELA TOMCHEK
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Featured photo by Michaela Tomchek
What to know:
- India’s coffee industry is evolving: Karnataka produces most of India’s coffee, and younger producers are driving innovation while increasing interest in specialty Arabica and domestic coffee consumption
- South India Coffee Company (SICC) is pioneering coffee research: Founded by Akshay Dashrath and Komal Sable, the company works works with more than 30 producers and operates a research garden studying species like Excelsa, Liberica, and Arabica, along with hybrids and grafting techniques.
- Climate resilience is the focus: With climate change threatening Arabica production, SICC is researching heat- and disease-tolerant coffee varieties to help Indian growers maintain quality and sustainable yields in the future
Karnataka, a southwestern state in India, is responsible for over half of the South Asian country’s coffee production. Although the country is growing more Robusta than Arabica, there are some extraordinary farms innovating and producing some high-quality Arabica beans. Not only that, but the younger generations are beginning to expand on coffee research, eager to innovate and improve production on the land their families have owned for generations.
South India Coffee Company (SICC) is one example of some truly exceptional work going on in Karnataka, placing India on the map for coffee research and innovation. Today, we’ll learn more about SICC and hear from founders Akshay Dashrath and Komal Sable on the work they’re doing to share Indian coffee with the global industry.
Indian coffee history
Coffee was first brought to India in the 17th century, and many say it was brought by a Sufi saint from Yemen to Chikmagalur, Karnataka. At the time, it was highly illegal to take coffee beans abroad—but following support from the Dutch, who had trade presence in India, coffee production soon took off. In the mid-1700s, the first coffee farms were established by the British, and over the next couple of centuries, coffee production adapted and developed.
Today, coffee primarily grows in Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, which make up nearly 90% of the country’s yields. Karnataka in southwest India is the leading producing state, growing 70% of India’s coffee (both Arabica and Robusta). However, coffee is slowly moving North, to Andra Pradesh and Odisha in the Eastern Ghats and in the northeastern “Seven Sister” states of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Most coffee grown in India comes from farms 10 hectares or smaller in size. India’s total production is roughly 70% Robusta, with the remaining 30% being Arabica.
Something special about Indian coffee is that most of it grows under a diverse array of native shade. Nitrogen-fixing trees provide the ideal shade while also allocating nutrients to the soil. Cover crops such as vanilla or black pepper are also commonly planted with coffee trees to diversify income and protect soil health.
India became quite well-known for its Monsoon Malabar processing method. This occurred due to the long transit times in the early 20th century, causing the beans to absorb moisture along the lengthy journey. This caused the beans to change hue and the flavor profile to alter. This profile is still sought after by some markets and thus has been replicated within the country, modern technology now prevents any moisture damage to coffee beans and shipping times are much faster.
While tea was the common drink of choice amongst older generations of India, local coffee consumption is gradually increasing. The youth of India and becoming gradually more interested in coffee production and running specialty cafés. Between 2010 and 2019, domestic consumption of coffee nearly doubled. Thus, it is this generation that is really pushing for the development and revolution of the coffee sector in India.
A look at South India Coffee Company
SICC was founded in 2017 by couple Akshay Dashrath and Komal Sable. Originally a fifth-generation coffee producer from Coorg, a historic coffee growing area in Karnataka, Akshay left his hometown to study information technology at the University of York in the United Kingdom, which is where he met Komal, who is from Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharastra.
When living in the U.K., the couple discovered that it was difficult to locate high quality Indian beans abroad, so they decided to set up their own exporting group. This thus became South India Coffee Company (SICC). Akshay and Komal eventually decided to move back to India to take over the Mooleh Manay Estate, nestled just outside the town of Madikeri along the foothills of the Ghats. The estate stretches across 30 hectares, ranging between 800 and 1,000 meters above sea level.
“Mooleh Manay’s land has been in the Gundugutti family since the early 1800s, when it was mostly paddy fields, in Nakoor Village in North Coorg on the backwaters of the Harangi Reservoir. For generations, it was part of the larger Kanbile Estate,” says Komal. “In 2013, my mother-in-law, G.G. Padmashree, a fourth-generation planter, carved it out as its own operation and named it Mooleh Manay, Kannada for ‘Corner House.'”
As the couple returned to India and settled into the farm, research and development ensued. Mooleh Manay had its own processing facilities which SICC revamped, and through careful research and development, the SICC team was able to process more efficiently, adopting some unique fermentations to improve the quality of the coffee.
Today, the farm grows Arabica (which makes up 50% of the estate’s production), Robusta (40%), and Excelsa (10%) in addition to pepper, oranges, jackfruit, avocado, and banana under a native shade canopy of ficus, Indian beech trees (Pongamia pinnata), and many more tree species. Thanks to Komal and Akshay’s hard work, Arabica is beginning to have a more significant presence in the farm. Each year, there has been an increase in production, with more trees being planted.
SICC works with a number of farms in the area, collecting already processed coffee and cherries to process and export across the globe. Today, they partner with more than 30 coffee producers, bringing together coffee from farms across India and working with specialty roasters in the U.K., U.S., Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, and beyond.
Something else unique about SICC is their dedication to researching and understanding different coffee species. They’ve designated an entire area of the farm as the “Living Germplasm Garden,” where they research other coffee species, conducting further research in the SICC office and lab.
This desire to explore other coffee species was inspired by Akshay’s grandfather, who said the tall trees that grew on the family farm were of the Excelsa species. DNA technology was not readily available at the time, but once Akshay and Komal took over, they sent samples to Kew Gardens in London, and confirmed it was indeed Excelsa. This led the couple to pursue more research in the species realm, with support from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and senior researcher Dr. Aaron Davis.
“The experimental block sits on our second, smaller parcel, about 22 acres, and doubles as our processing center, nursery and SICC office. It was established in 2022,” says Komal. “It holds SICC’s living germplasm collection—14 species and hybrids as of now—spanning our Arabica and Robusta selections alongside Excelsa, Liberica, Stenophylla, Racemosa, and four species native to India’s Western Ghats: Benghalensis, Wightiana, Neobridsoniae, and Travancorensis.”
Adds Komal: “It also holds two interspecies hybrids: Libex (Excelsa × Liberica) and TCH (Excelsa × Arabica), the tetraploid hybrid first identified in Coorg in 1998. Alongside the living collection, it’s where we run our grafting trials, Arabica and Robusta scion grafted onto Excelsa rootstock.”
Looking to the future
Komal warns that the Indian coffee industry is under threat due to climate change, especially since wild Arabica is listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List. “Modeling is suggesting that its wild populations in Ethiopia and South Sudan could decline by at least 50 percent by 2088,” says Komal.
“This matters to coffee producers everywhere because wild Arabica is an important source of genetic diversity for the future of the crop. Protecting that diversity is not about replacing one coffee species with another, but about giving growers more options as growing conditions change,” she adds.
Komal reports that at Mooleh Manay, during a 2024–25 Excelsa trial, their block recorded temporary heat stress and leaf drop during a dry spell, with vapor-pressure deficit around 1.6 kPa and soil dried to 2395 kPa—well past the wilting point—before recovering within two weeks of rain.
Because of its higher heat tolerance and resistance to diseases like leaf rust, Robusta is preferred in India. This is why SICC is allocating research on low-intervention, climate-tolerant coffee species, while also assessing interspecies hybrids and conducting grafting trials to locate more resilient planting material.
According to Komal, “Total production runs around 360,000 tons a year, making India the world’s sixth- to eighth-largest producer depending on the season, with growth in domestic consumption running at roughly 5% a year for over a decade.” An increase in Arabica production is unlikely due to the high dependence on Robusta and Arabica’s fragility with the looming changes in climate.
“The more likely growth is in Robusta, Excelsa, and interspecies hybrids like Libex in the warmer, lower- and mid-elevation zones where Arabica is becoming harder to grow reliably,” says Komal. The species research at SICC is thus important to pave the way towards a low intervention, climate-tolerant coffee that maintains quality and has a sustainable yield.
The team at SICC works closely on species research with Dr. Aaron Davis and the team at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Additionally, Komal adds that this research includes studies on DNA verification and genomic classification of Excelsa, Liberica, and their hybrids—a partnership that confirmed the Mooleh Manay Estate’s farm material as true Excelsa rather than Liberica, and that co-named the interspecies hybrid Coffea × libex, with SICC Labs credited as a co-author on the Scientific Reports paper.
SICC is also a part of the Coffee Circle Foundation’s Coffee Vision Fund, which was a funding source for their 2024-25 Excelsa climate and soil-moisture suitability study amongst five estates in Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru.
“The hope isn’t to have Excelsa or these hybrids replace Arabica or Robusta. It’s to give coffee growers a genuinely climate-resilient, low-intervention option that’s backed by real agronomic and genomic data, not the boundary-tree folklore it’s been treated as for over a century,” says Komal.
Overall, SICC is doing some innovative and exceptional work, conducting research that is vital to the future of coffee production in India and other origin countries. Through their work, they’ve learned more about climate change’s impact on coffee and how the coffee industry can adapt to these threats. Visit their website to learn more, and be sure to keep your eye out for more Indian-grown coffee—thanks to the work of SICC and younger coffee producers in India, it will start appearing on specialty shelves more frequently in the near future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michaela Tomchek finds coffee an important part of life and the world. She is an appreciator of the crop, the producer, and the many cafés throughout the world serving beautiful beverages. Currently, she writes about coffee, hoping to spread her joy across the globe.
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