Monsoon in Mangaluru: The story of an accidental coastal coffee legacy

When the monsoon lashes the coast of Mangaluru, drenching the city’s spice-scented air and painting the landscape in deep greens, it also awakens a centuries-old, sea-borne secret — the Monsooned Malabar Coffee. This uniquely mellow, earthy brew traces its origins not to a crafted recipe, but to a maritime accident from the age of sails.The story goes thus: in the 17th and 18th centuries, coffee beans from the Malabar Coast spent six humid months in the wooden hulls of slowmoving ships bound for Europe. Along the way, relentless sea winds and moisture transformed the beans — bleaching their colour, softening their acidity, and gifting them a musty, aged flavour that quickly became a European and Scandinavian favourite.

The advent of steamships and construction of the Suez Canal cut this voyage to just a month, robbing the beans of their distinct, monsooned character. Refusing to let this unique taste vanish with the era of sailing ships, coastal coffee producers around Mangaluru pioneered a meticulously staged ‘monsooning’ process on land, using the very monsoon winds that once filled the sails.An export storyToday, Mangaluru is the top producer of Monsooned Malabar Coffee.

Aspinwall and Company, a pioneer operating in the region since 1867, is one of the oldest and largest producers. The company has a capacity to produce up to 5,000 metric tonnes of coffee. According to the Coffee Board of India, the region exports approximately 7,000 tonnes of Monsooned Malabar Coffee every year. Only a small quantity of the same coffee is sold within the domestic market.

There are a few other players too.Both arabica and robusta cherries are used to produce the famed coffee. “When the shipping time reduced, Europeans started to complain about the missing distinctive musty flavour of the unwashed Indian coffee. To cater to this demand for musty-flavoured coffee, we devised and perfected the process known as ‘monsooning of coffee’,” explains Saurabh Chaturvedi, DGM of Aspinwall.One of the earliest references to monsooning of Indian coffee is made by Cecil Gifford way back in Jan 1950 in an article titled ‘Monsooning of Robusta Coffee’ published in the Indian Coffee Journal.

Describing the making of monsooned coffee, Gifford goes on to mention that a large portion of the sales of coffee in the world’s markets before the war were monsooned coffees, which were sold at high prices.In 1957, planter MSP Rajah, serving as a member of the Coffee Board, toured several European countries. On his return, he published a report urging the revival of monsooned coffee for export—a trade that had declined since World War II.

Over the years, coffee aficionados, researchers and coffee traders have recognised Monsooned Malabar Coffee as a unique offering from India to the world of specialty coffee market.Monsooned Malabar Arabica and Robusta Coffee varieties have been recognised with a Geographical Indication (GI) tag.Bagging monsoon windThe Monsooned Coffee can be prepared only in the Malabar region, claim producers. “The process is long and requires a lot of manual labour — each cherry is handpicked or garbled so that the best of the best beans go into every cup of coffee,” explains Mahesh Kumar, AGM of Aspinwall.The coffee is produced between June and Sept when the southwest monsoon hits the region. Onlyhigher grades of robusta and arabica variety beans are used. After grading and sorting, the selected beans are taken for monsooning. They are stocked in warehouses well before the onset of monsoon.Once the region starts receiving rain, the arabica and robusta beans are spread across well-ventilated cement-floored warehouses.

They are then raked at even intervals to ensure uniform exposure of beans to the monsoon winds. The saturated winds help the beans absorb moisture. Later, the beans are packed loosely into gunny bags, up to half the capacity. The unsealed bags are then stacked vertically, with four resting in a row, leaving sufficient space in between to enable the monsoon air to circulate freely around each bag.

Theseare called ‘wind rows’.

The bags are bulked and repacked once a week and rearranged in rows.This monsooning process repeats for 12-16 weeks or more, depending on the weather. “The entire process till here is done through manual labour and no machine is involved,” says a floor manager.The beans are considered fully monsooned when they assume a golden yellow colour. “At this stage, the beans are polished by passing them through the polishers or hullers.

Then they are graded and sorted using advanced colour sorters, where the defective beans (black/brown) are removed. The beans then undergo manual garbling, and then bulked again to bring in uniformity,” says Ramaprasad, senior manager of Aspinwall.

After bulking, the coffee is packed in clean new gunny bags and fumigated before they are stored away or shipped.The entire process helps coffee beans absorb moisture gradually.

As a result, they swell to about double their normal size, and the colour changes to pale yellow. The monsooning process removes the fruitiness and acidity from raw beans, imparting a mellow flavour with reduced bitterness. In the cup, Monsooned Malabar Coffee exhibits good body/strength, mild acidity, rich-toned sweetness, and a mellow taste, which makes it unique.Crafting a flavourKenneth Davids, a renowned coffee quality expert, in his review ‘Mysores and Monsooned Malabars: Coffees of India,’ compares the Monsooned Malabar Coffee to unique, intensely softripened cheeses and peaty Islay single malt whiskies.“The Monsooned Malabar Robusta Coffee from India is one of the finest quality specialty coffees in the world, which commands a premium in the overseas market not only for its distinctive quality but also for its best blending attributes,” describes Tushara, head of quality at Aspinwall.The uniformity, sweetness, and mellowness of Monsooned Coffee make it an excellent foundation as a single-origin espresso, delivering a unique and indulgent experience.From history to humidity, from bean to brew, this coffee tells the story of a region where nature, chance, and craftsmanship meet in every sip.Cletus Anthony D’Souza, manager of the coffee division at Allana Consumer Products, says the group started Monsooned Malabar Coffee processing a couple of years ago. “The biggest chunk is exported to European countries. The use in the domestic market is limited, where brewers buy 50 to 100 kg of coffee once in a while,” he says. The group produces a total of about 1,000 tonnes, primarily of arabica and small quantities of robusta coffee, at a facility in Kuttar.