Tag: coffee plantations

The People Who Make Coffee

Published on by Anju@TravelingNoodles2 Comments

Life at a coffee plantation can be arduous, laid back, dangerous and at the same time fulfilling. I haven’t lived at a coffee plantation but we got an opportunity to glimpse at this slice of life by visiting and staying at plantations in Coorg, Chikmanglur and in Bali (Indonesia). Most coffee plantations are situated remotely with coffee shrubs interspersed by tall silver oak trees. It is not unusual for the plantation to be visited by elephants, tigers and wild boars. The coffee planter would ideally have his bungalow in the middle of the plantation with the next neighbor about 30 kms away.

But if you look carefully, a plantation is not just the coffee planter and his wife and kids its a micro community of sorts with staff at the bungalow, permanent workers at the plantation, drivers, people at the plant, migrant workers, coffee pickers, people working at processing. If it is a large enough plantation  then there would also be schools, creches, co operative shops and a whole gamut of people and services that running a plantation involves.

The stories that the people whose life revolves around coffee tell is very interesting. Living at a plantation is a different experience entirely as you get to immerse yourself in their world for a short while and see the world from their eyes. You would hear stories of being scared when confronted by a lone tusker, stories of catching a majestic tiger, coffee flowers blooming early or about coffee planters awaiting spring showers.

Stories by migrant workers from Bengal who would leave after the harvesting season is over to some other part of the country where work would be available. Childhood memories of helping one’s mother at coffee picking as wages are determined by weight and then skipping off to play once snacks had been brought for the workers. About the rare bird sightings and the excitement of that conjures. Greetings from a post master from the nearby town who connects the people tucked away at the plantation to the rest of the world.

School going children who are accompanied by their parents going to work for coffee picking or any of the other tasks that forms the life line of coffee. Younger children running amok among the rows of coffee shrubs lined with tall trees with their parents on the look out for a wild boar or a herd of elephants crossing their paths. People always on the look out for each other as life is tough and a friendly greeting or a timely warning can make a big difference in an otherwise simple life.

The life at a plantation rises with the sun and sets with it and follows a lifestyle hidden to the city dweller . The conversations revolve around coffee amidst the fragrance of coffee blooms while sipping a cup of the heady brew. Visiting a plantation is great for the body and soul with the fresh mountain air, wholesome food and friendly faces and smiles that one can earn just by being present in the moment.

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Making New friends at a Coffee Plantation in Indonesia
Children Playing between Coffee shrubs

 

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Heading out for work
A Post Woman at a one room post office

 

The Best Time to Introduce your Child to the Outdoors? It is Now!

Published on by Anju@TravelingNoodlesLeave a comment

This article is part of the series I wrote on Women’s Web for Plantation Trails Tata Coffee after enjoying a rather pleasant stay at the plantation bungalow in Coorg.

A stark difference between the housing societies of a decade earlier, and the colonies of today is the number of children playing outside. One might see children going to tennis classes, dance classes and even the gym, but it is becoming a rare sight to see a kid play using his or her imagination and free will. The merits of unstructured play over structured play have been debated a number of times and there are parents in both camps, but as a new parent, I hope that more kids are encouraged to play outdoors and just be themselves.

Travel is a great way to introduce a child to the outdoors. In my experience, the earlier you introduce travel to a child, the easier journeys become as they grow older. When children travel to new places, they learn that the world is a very diverse place, and not limited to the world they see around themselves.  Read further

Chicory Coffee and Chikmagalure

Published on by Anju@TravelingNoodlesLeave a comment

The air gets thinner and the rich aroma of coffee mixed with chicory caresses my senses as I wait at the dusty little bus stop. A crowd of men patiently wait the next bus to take them into the neighbouring towns, the traffic is composed of jeeps which ferry to and fro from the mountains blanketed with coffee plantations.

The faint sun glints off the stainless steel utensils hung in the bazaar while a sweeper quietly sweeps the road adding to the dust circling around the road. Sounds of hymns and prayers arise from the temple nearby, a woman in a red saree hunches over making a ritualistic design with rice powder welcoming prosperity into her home.
The coffee grinder goes full throtle grinding up coffee beans and chicory into the perfect elixir of the south indian morning. The ground beans make it to the coffee filter a must for every home in the region, the bigger the filter the bigger the family. The coffee powder thus concocted is pressed, squeezed and mixed with milk and sugar only to be built into a froth with a practised art passed down through centuries. It is then pored into multiple steel pint glasses set inside tumblers, so that you can practice the frothing whooshing action that you witnessed for yourself before sipping the filter coffee which is a foriegn pleasure. The legend that any tour guide in the sleepy town of Chikmanglur will endorse tells a story of Baba Budan who smuggled the first beans of coffee from Arab merchants and planted it amongst the tall teak trees laced with pepper vines.
Since then the coffee was embraced as an integral part in the land of chai drinkers. The mountains which nurse the coffee beans have etheral feeling to it much like the heady sweet coffee. The tall trees punctuated with coffee plants where an occasional peacock flits through transports me to a prehistoric time which I have just dreamed about. The ride up to the coffee plantation in the back of an old jeep acted as the perfect time machine.

 

The plantation with the quaint guest house reeked of coffee as it got roasted and dried and packed. A gurgling stream which cut through the plantation imparted its earthy taste to the coffee beans and they swayed and danced among the leaves. All I could hear was the monkeys chattering in the trees, the brook babbling and the birds chirping. As I sat sipping my aromatic chicory coffee, they told me the story of coffee.

An inspiring fragrance http://www.godrejaer.com/