Bharath - Espresso from India

Bharath - Coffee Info

How we prepare the coffee

This Old Peridenia is a powerhouse. It brings a creamy, soft texture that perfectly supports the delicate acidity of this Robusta. When expertly extracted, it produces a sweet, dense, balanced espresso that takes Nadja straight to a cozy winter fireplace. Don't pull it longer than 30 seconds, otherwise it slowly shifts into an unpleasant, slightly metallic bitterness.

The recipe with the vibratory pump convinces us through and through. Michel's words: "I've never had a Robusta with such incredibly integrated acidity." This is his comment on our brew with 18.5 g in and 43 ml out in 24 seconds. This gives us an extremely soft, dense, creamy and balanced cup with incredibly integrated acidity. If we pull the coffee to 32 seconds or longer, we get isolated acidity through over-extraction - similar to Arabica. The slightly longer pre-infusion that the vibratory pump naturally provides does this coffee good.

Our recipe for the vibratory pump (18.5 g in, 43 ml out in 24 sec.) doesn't quite work for the rotary pump. The cup isn't balanced enough for our taste. That's why we pull the shot 3-5 seconds longer, keeping the same drink ratio. Now we have that soft, dense texture again with flavors of walnut, vanilla, pastry. This leads us to question whether the vibratory pump really needs a longer brew time - a universal theory that deserves to be questioned and followed up on.

Why does this coffee taste the way it does?

This coffee comes from Coorg in India, more precisely from the municipality of Palestina, at an altitude of 1,000 meters. The Old Peridenia variety has been grown here since time immemorial.

The cherries are hand-harvested and then run through a flotation system at the washing station on Bharath's Craigmore Tinyspot farm to remove low-density beans and defects. After that, they are pulped and washed, then dried on sun-warmed concrete.

Why did we buy this coffee?

Nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats is Craigmore Tinyspot - a family-run coffee farm in its third generation in the gentle hills of Coorg, Karnataka. Bharath Belliappa is committed to producing sustainably grown coffee that flourishes under the dense natural shade of native Western Ghats trees.

We met Bharath through Komal and Akshey from the South India Coffee Company (SICC). The two manage their own sixth-generation family coffee farm in Coorg and serve as a knowledge hub for the region with their expertise and wet mill.

The collaboration with SICC and Bharath grew out of our exchange. We were looking for a producer who shared our understanding of coffee and produced high-quality Robusta. So this Old Peridenia is grown and processed by Bharath on his own wet mill, exported through Komal and Akshey, imported by Lennart and his company This Side Up, and roasted by us.

How we roast this coffee

As a 20-kg batch on our 30-kg roaster. We usually roast our slightly darker coffees at full capacity of 30 kg, but this coffee is very hard - Canephoras have hard cell walls and need a lot of heat for faster roasting. So we roast the coffee up to the first crack with 70% energy, which is a lot. We roast it for a total of 13:30 minutes to the same end temperature as our APAS. The roast level is therefore similar, but the color is lighter because Canephoras don't get as dark as Arabicas at the same temperature.

Shipping also available by coffee letter

All our coffees can be ordered in the form of a coffee letter. It is treated like a regular letter and arrives in your mailbox. This reduces the postage for 250g of coffee from 7 to 2.5 francs. At checkout, you can choose between coffee letter, A-Post and B-Post options.