According to popular lore, a 17th-century Sufi named Baba Budan carried seven coffee beans home from the Yemeni port of Mokha, hidden in his beard, and planted them in the hills near Chikmagalur in Karnataka. The hills now carry his name. The story is told widely but is poorly documented.
Coffee drinking in India is older than that story suggests. Mughal accounts record coffeehouses in Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi) from the early 1600s. British planters opened substantial estates near Baba Budan Giri from the 1820s. Coffee rust hit hard from the 1870s, and many planters switched to tea.
In the south, coffee became filter kaapi: dark-roasted coffee blended with chicory, dripped through a two-part metal filter and mixed with hot milk. It is poured back and forth between two vessels to cool it and raise a froth.
On the Malabar coast, workers expose dried beans to the monsoon winds for 12 to 16 weeks. This recreates the change beans once went through on the long sailing voyage to Europe.
South Indian filter coffee · filter kaapi
How it's made. Dark-roasted coffee (traditionally Plantation A arabica or Peaberry), blended about 80 to 90 percent coffee with 10 to 20 percent chicory, is put in the upper cup of a stacked metal filter and pressed with a disc. Hot water is poured over it and drips through. The brew is mixed with hot milk. Sugar is optional; jaggery or honey were used before white sugar became common in the mid-1900s.1
How it's served. Served in a steel tumbler set in a wide saucer (dabarah or davara). The coffee is poured between the two vessels from a height to cool it and make froth.
What time is taking away
Monsooning
Coffee once changed colour and flavour in the damp holds of sailing ships that took months to round the Cape of Good Hope. Faster shipping ended that. Curers on the Malabar coast now spread, rake and turn beans in ventilated warehouses during the June to September monsoon, so the beans swell and turn pale gold.2,3
The workers' Indian Coffee House
The Coffee Board opened coffee houses in the early 1940s, then closed them in the mid-1950s. Sacked workers took over the branches as cooperatives under A. K. Gopalan. The first Indian Coffee House opened in New Delhi on 27 October 1957, and the chain is still run by cooperative societies.2
What the record says
- According to legend, Baba Budan smuggled seven coffee beans out of Mokha, Yemen, hidden in his beard, and planted them near Chikmagalur. Wikipedia gives a 1670 date but flags it as needing a citation.2,4
- Mughal court accounts record coffeehouses (qahwakhanas) in Shahjahanabad, now Old Delhi, from the early 1600s.1
- The first substantial British coffee plantations began in the 1820s near Baba Budan Giri and Chandragiri.2
- Coffee rust cut Indian output from the 1870s, and many planters replaced coffee with tea.2
- All Indian coffee is grown under shade, usually with two tiers of shade trees.2
- The Coffee Board of India was set up under a 1942 Act of Parliament.2
- Filter kaapi blends are typically 80 to 90 percent coffee and 10 to 20 percent chicory.1
- Monsooned Malabar beans are exposed to monsoon winds for about 12 to 16 weeks between June and September, and they swell and turn pale gold.3
- Monsooned Malabar has protected status under India's Geographical Indications of Goods Act.3
The Baba Budan story is lore: Wikipedia carries several citation-needed flags and sources disagree on the date (1670 versus a vaguer 17th century). Coffee Board pages could not be reached (DNS failure), so Wikipedia is the main source; a stronger primary source would help. Most Monsooned Malabar histories online are roaster blogs and were not used. Harvest months were not found in an opened source.
- Indian filter coffee · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Coffee production in India · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Monsooned Malabar · Wikipedia in the bibliography
- Baba Budan · Wikipedia in the bibliography
