India Coffee (Plantation & Monsooned)

Plantation A, Cherry AB & Monsooned Malabar

India's coffee nomenclature is its own and confuses buyers who assume it follows Latin American convention. Washed coffees are called Parchment — Plantation A is washed arabica, Robusta Parchment AB is washed robusta — while natural, dry-processed coffees are called Cherry: Arabica Cherry AB and Robusta Cherry AB. Grades A, AB, B and C denote screen size within each. Nearly all of it is shade-grown under a canopy in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which slows maturation and is a genuine agronomic and biodiversity distinction rather than marketing. The origin's singular product is Monsooned Malabar AA: green coffee deliberately exposed to the south-west monsoon in open warehouses for several months, swelling the beans, bleaching them pale gold and stripping acidity almost entirely to leave a heavy, musty, low-acid cup with pronounced body. Nothing else in the trade tastes like it.

Buy Indian coffee for two quite separate reasons. Plantation A and the robusta grades are solid, sensibly priced blend components with good body — India is the third-largest robusta producer and its washed robusta in particular cups cleaner than most, making it useful in espresso. Monsooned Malabar is bought for what it is: the low-acid, heavy-bodied specialist that Italian-style espresso houses and certain traditional blends specifically call for, and which no substitute replicates. It is not a general-purpose coffee — buyers wanting brightness will hate it, and that is the point. The practical note on India is that shade-grown production and its associated documentation increasingly matter for EU-bound business under deforestation-diligence rules, where canopy-grown coffee with clear land history is easier to evidence than frontier planting. CBIL brokers Indian arabica and robusta against grade, screen, moisture, defect count and cup assessment, on FOB Cochin and Chennai, CFR and CIF terms.