Walk through the neighborhoods. Look toward the pin oaks. Cracked acorns, orange-flamed leaves, a squirrel climbing lazily onto an Adirondack chair. Remember that houses can be old and beautiful: the colonials white and orange like a vintage postcard, the Victorian like steeple-topped cakes, like a wealthy girl’s dollhouse. The barns are wide open full of slats, full of pale light. Stalks of golden corn, wooden tables topped with pumpkins. Every corner there is a bank. A church. A farm, a farmstand. The river moves forward. The valley stands still.
This October, Pollard’s Coffee of the Month Club presents India: Allanasons. This Arabica
variety helms from the southern state of Karnataka, which, along with the states Kerala and
Tamil Nadu, produces 90 percent of India’s coffee volume.
Allanasons’ various smallholders generally operate on less than 10 hectares each. The farms are hilly and shrouded in a canopy of evergreen legume trees like mother of cocoa. The coffee on these farms is intercropped with spices and other yields: pepper, cardamom, vanilla, oranges, and bananas.
Like most Arabica farms, Allanasons’ smallholders work at 1,200 miles above sea level,
producing well-round and balanced green coffee beans. Arabica coffee from the south of India is processed uniquely through the Monsooned Malabar process, which seeks to replicate conditions of bygone colonial vessels. The wooden ships of 19th century Britain took six months to travel between India and Europe, and the wind and sea and heat and humidity all worked together on the long voyage to swell, age, and turn the beans pale and golden.
Technology changed, travel time shortened, and coffee producers adapted to retain the complex flavors emphasized by the harsh conditions. They do this during monsoon season by exposing the beans to extreme wind, moisture, and humidity for 12 to 16 weeks in well-ventilated warehouses. The result is something rich and heavy bodied.
Taste dark chocolate. Warm pastry. Tangerine. It’s autumn, and all the grocery stores are selling costumes and cobwebs, apple cider donuts, pumpkin flavored pastries. The year is slowing down. Leaves are burnt, leaving smoke faint and itchy in the air. At night listen for the trains. In the morning step out into the dew, the sparkling gossamer in the grass. Steam rising against your chin. Close your eyes, drink it down.
Subscribe to our Coffee of the Month Club today to receive your bag of India: Allanasons. If
you’re hesitant, try for a month, three months, or six months. If you like it (we hope you will), subscribe until canceled. Allanasons will be available to nonsubscribers in November, but at a higher price, and stock will be limited (Brazil didn't last long enough). Still hesitating? An ancient witch is subject to cast a powerful spell on you to move the decision along...
Variety: S795 Chauvery
Region: Chikmagalur, Karnataka, India
Altitude: 1200 masl
Process: Washed
Harvest: October-February
Producer: Various smallholders, Hassan Mill
Tasting notes: Dark chocolate, warm baked goods, citrus fruit
Comments