Monsoon Malabar is a coffee of distinction with an epic history.

This is one of the great coffees of the world, and one of a handful of well-known coffees of India. It has a mellow, rich taste without any bitterness. It is dark and smooth, yet highly “aggressive”. Monsoon Malabar is a coffee to be loved and adored, or detested, but at the very least it should be tasted and have its fascinating history known.

Monsoon Malabar gets its name from the “monsooning” process given to coffee beans that originated from the Malabar Coast. When the British began shipping coffee beans from India to Europe, they were packed into the holds of wooden ships and exposed to a 6 month journey, during which the conditions were invariably humid. The trip to the coffee centres of Europe mellowed and took away the acidity of the beans. The Europeans loved the taste.

Unfortunately, as technology and routes changed these journey times reduced and the mellowing process ceased to occur, denying Europe of its beloved mellowed coffee taste. Coffee growers soon realised they could ingeniously duplicate this process by exposing the beans to the elements of the Indian Monsoon, hence the name of Monsoon Malabar.

The process of monsooning is quite lengthy and labour intensive. The beans have to be stored until the monsoon season starts and then they are exposed to the wind and rain of the monsoon whereupon they enlarge dramatically. This is just a small part of the history of this fascinating bean and is worth knowing when drinking this particular flavour.

All our coffees are hand-roasted in small batches of less than 10kg at a time and are personally selected by our master coffee roaster and connoisseur.

100% Arabica

We are always happy to provide your beans ready-ground free of charge. Please select how you would like your beans ground.