The Coffee

Estate : Mooleh Manay, SICC
Roaster : Kapikottai, Chennai
Varietal : Arabica (?SLN 795, ?SLN 6, ?Catuai
Process : Carbonic macerated naturals.

The Esate : Mooleh Manay, SICC

Located in North Coorg, on the banks of the Harangi backwaters, the Kannada phrase ‘Mooleh Manay’ translates to ‘corner house’. This estate grows Arabica, Robusta and Excelsa coffee species, all processed as honeys or naturals. Its producers, Komal and Akshay, maintain a fine balance with the eco-system and don’t use weedicides across most of their farm with absolutely minimal use of fertilisers. Interestingly, this estate is amongst the first farms in India to grow high grade Excelsa coffee. (1)

They primarily grow arabica and robusta at Mooleh Manay along with a bit of excelsa. All coffees are processed with a lot of care and grown very sustainably without weedicides in most blocks (it’s all manual weeding, sometimes with just simple hand tools) and judicious use of fertilisers. Jungle trees are aplenty in the estate as primary shade-givers including uncommon species like Artocarpus Hirsutus(wild jack) and Adina cordifolia (yellow teak). (2)

The Roaster : Kapikottai, Chennai

Barista on Bike AKA Binny suggested that i visit this roaster a few blocks from home, who was roasting coffee on his OTG. Akshay showed me the whole process, but who undoubtedly charmed me was Bumbles – the amazing doggo and mascot of Kapikottai. Akshay is a musician who plays the Chitravainika and hence the raagams for the names of the coffee. However, he is under strict orders from regulars to never rename Mind=Blown and Curveball. OG Classics.  He’s now roasting on a Ailio Bulledt R1V2 which makes his coffee extra superbly awesome but he still drinks half the bag in the name of QC checks. 

Started in late 2018 , Kāpikottai (literally coffee beans in Tamil) is an attempt at highlighting the excellence and uniqueness of Indian coffees and getting the conversation started about traceability, social equity and low environmental impact in the Indian coffee ecosystem. We are very committed to trading directly with the farms we source from and establishing a long standing, empathetic business relationship with the planters involved. Growing and processing good coffee in India is hard work and we do our best to understand the challenges this throws up. This venture began life as a passion project (started out of a home kitchen, of all places) in Chennai, where there is a lot of coffee but not much that is either traceable or speciality. Therefore, our main focus is to make excellent coffees more accessible and hopefully get people wondering about the journey taken by their cuppa’ Joe or piping hot tumbler of filter kapi!  Based in Kilpauk (a leafy Chennai suburb), Kāpikottai HQ is the base for our green coffee storage, roasting and ops. Green coffee is carefully stored in climate controlled conditions, in hermetically sealed bags. We find that optimum storage goes a long way in ensuring ideal coffee quality (a lot of trial and error was involved to come to this conclusion and set up!) (3)

The Bean : Arabica

Mind = Blown is arabica from Mooleh Manay. They have SLN 795, SLN 6 and Catuai so the beans could be either or all of them.

The process : Carbonic Maceration

My thoughts

this is my 5th year drinking mind=blown and mind has been blown away as per usual. this is a brilliantly winey coffee with a full body and lovely aftertaste. it’s mildly tarty and acidic but the winey notes dominate. more pruney than raisins. works best as pourovers. dont ever miss a chance to get this every harvest please

Tags: carbonic maceration, kapikottai, Mind blown, mooley manay, SICC