COSTS: Reduced Tour Fee of US$1500 covers all hotels, meals and ground transportation.
DATES: January 13-18th, 2013.
CONTACT: Pat Connolly, our Melbourne Roaster is your Team Leader (pat@venezianocoffee.com.au)
Each year, Veneziano Coffee Roasters pay a visit to one of our key specialty coffee producers in India, the Kaapi Royale coffee company and Sethuraman Estate farm. Kaapi Royale, home of the world’s first (and to date only) R certified fine Robusta, supplies Veneziano with most of its Indian coffee.
Read about our last tour here!
The 2013 Origin Tour is scheduled for January and is open to our wholesale customers, providing a great opportunity for them to accompany us and gain some in depth knowledge of origin beans and processing methods.
The Kaapi Royale coffee origin tour commences at the distinguished Bangalore Club (day one) and is followed by a visit to the Indian Coffee Board (day two) which is responsible for upholding the required quality standards before the beans are shipped to Australia. Of particular interest during this visit is the peculiar cupping method used to assess the beans.
Days three and four incorporate one of the trip highlights, a visit to Kaapi Royale’s Sethuraman Estate farm in Magundi of the Chikmagalur region, to view the coffee plantations and more importantly the various facilities used in the different stages of processing. This portion of the tour is hosted by Veneziano’s supplier and good friend, Nishant Gurjer of Kaapi Royale, a proponent of specialty coffee, engineer and sixth generation coffee farmer responsible for the farm’s recent processing and environmental innovations.
A tour of the estate and adjoining farms, including scenic forest areas where coffee trees grow amongst pepper trees and native wildlife, is timed to coincide with the busiest period of coffee harvesting, giving visitors the maximum insight into coffee picking, sorting, selecting and processing methods (natural and washed) in the height of the season. Cupping opportunities are abundant, including some interesting microlots.
Sethuraman Estate farm produces the Monsoon Malabar, which is a high-grade coffee, having won the Flavours of India Fine Cup Award for four consecutive years. This unique coffee undergoes a special processing method, and is named so because the coffee is dry processed and exposed to the monsoonal Malabar winds for a three to four month period which makes the beans swell and lost acidity. This produces a coffee with a full mouthfeel, dark cocoa notes with spice and nuts.
We squeeze in a visit to the dry milling facility and the world famous Belur-Halebidu temples (day five) before returning to Bangalore (day six), for a day of experiencing Indian culture, including a feast to be reckoned with (just ask our Brisbane roaster, Andrew Dickson).
As a prelude to the 2013 India Origin Tour in January (open to all wholesale customers) we invite you to a special seminar on Origins of India at the Melbourne First Pour. Meet the grower, Nishant Gurjer and gain an insight into the interesting story behind the quality of the Indian beans and the various farming, sorting and processing methods used.
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