If you think coffee from India sounds uncommon, wait until you hear about the Western Ghats mountain range where this coffee was cultivated. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most biologically diverse places in the world with more than 5,000 species of flowering plants and 508 different species of birds. The Neelakurinji flower is so uncommon that it only blooms every twelve years. And the legends say that the Western Ghats mountain range is the location where the first cultivated coffee in India arrived, from seven raw beans brought from Mocha by a Sufi saint on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 17th century. But this lot did not magically arrive at Royal. Rather, it comes from the Poopalang Kodaikanal Estate, which has 106 acres cultivated with coffee, oranges, and peppers. The estate has its own mill where coffee cherries are sorted, depulped, fermented, washed and then dried on patios.
