A Childhood in Coffee
CHAPTER III: origins in coorg
Hide and Seek
Picture a group of children playing outside while coffee dries in the nearby yard. A home sat within the plantation, the fields our playground. We’d play seven tiles and hide and seek, slipping behind silver oaks whose canopies hid our shadows.
Running in after the third (and final) call for dinner always came with the aroma of drying coffee drifting through the air.
This was my childhood.
Community
As the daughter of plantation owners, I feel privileged to have grown up within the Kodava community, a culture where nature is worshipped, land respected and traditions carried across generations.
The Kodava people are an Indo-Greek ancestral community indigenous to Coorg, known for their deep connection to nature and cultural rituals. With centuries of local tradition, it is a culture defined by stewardship of the land, community and continuity.
Childhood meant picking fallen fruit (fresh sapota a particular favourite), watching skilled hands climb effortlessly to harvest pepper from the vines and running through fields that felt like the ultimate playground. Only later in adulthood did I realise how much care, knowledge, and natural abundance shape this landscape and how these conditions create a coffee with such a distinct character.
The Sound of Cicadas
Today I live in London, but each visit home takes me back to Coorg; to family gatherings, shared meals, familiar laughter and of course the distinct sound of Cicadas singing. The culture remains vibrant and so does the daily ritual of coffee. In Coorg and nearby Mysore, cafés and homes alike serve the harvest of local estates. It is simply part of who we are.
Internationally, Coorg coffee is still a well kept secret, though it wasn’t always this way. From the early 1800s to the mid 1940s, coffee from this region held an esteemed place in global trade. Wartime disruptions and shifting routes closed these links. With 98% of estates still family owned, most growers have remained focused on their land and communities, rather than international markets.
A Return
Gaia Coffee Origins began simply: bringing small quantities of Coorg coffee to friends and family in the UK and Europe. The response was immediate; people recognised something distinctive, something quietly exceptional. Over time, we realised there was an opportunity to share this heritage more widely, not by reinventing it but by honouring it.
At Gaia Coffee Origins, we invite you to sip the story carried through generations and to share the origin of a land that has shaped every harvest.