Story & Photos

by Sean Grant

The first leg of our tour took us to the Ranade Group Companies.  We met with Dr. Ranade and his staff of scientists.  The Doctor explained how he and his group are working with the ownership of each estate within their circle and teaching them the urgency of proper plant care and the importance of better nutrients to grow more sustainable plants.  Although there is a lot more to it than what I'm explaining here, you can be rest assured that the good Doctor and his staff are taking great care in helping these growers produce good healthy plants, and therefore maximizing yields like never before.  After a brief question and answer period, we headed to the airport where we flew to Bangalore for a meeting at the India Coffee Board and we were introduced to Dr. Rau, chairman of the Coffee Board.  Each member of our group had the opportunity to ask as many questions as we wanted.  Most questions addressed introducing Indian coffees to the specialty coffee world and what needed to be done to make this happen.  The Doctor was very gracious with his time (we were originally scheduled for a 30 minute visit, however, it turned into more than an hour) and Dr. Rau answered our questions to the best of his ability and he expressed an eagerness to work with us on improving world-wide exposure of their coffees.  After our meeting, we toured the facility which likened itself to a museum and test facility of sorts.  I was very impressed learning about India and its coffee growing history.  Just before leaving we cupped a few samples they had prepared for us and we then moved on to our next distination, the hotel.

Next issue...Time to visit the estates