Mooleh Manay Estate

"Corner house" - that's what Mooleh Manay means in Kannada, a name that perfectly captures the secluded, tucked-away spirit of this remarkable estate on the banks of the Harangi Reservoir in North Coorg. Founded in 2013 by fourth-generation coffee planter G.G. Padmashree, the estate carries within it over a century of family involvement in Coorg's coffee landscape. Padmashree's ancestors were among the early cultivators in this part of Karnataka, and their accumulated knowledge of the land - its microclimates, its rhythms, its particular response to different coffee varieties - is embedded in every decision made on the farm today.

The estate is now stewarded by fifth-generation duo Komal Sable and Akshay Dashrath, both of whom spent significant time in the UK before returning to take over. Living in London gave them an intimate understanding of what international specialty roasters wanted from Indian coffee - and, more revealingly, showed them how absent Indian coffee was from specialty menus despite its extraordinary potential. They returned with a clear mandate: to make Mooleh Manay the kind of farm that serious roasters would seek out. The result has been a transformation in processing philosophy, infrastructure, and ambition.

Most excitingly, Mooleh Manay produces high-grade Excelsa coffee - known locally as "Mara Kaapi" or Tree Coffee - making it among the first farms in India to bring this rare species into the specialty conversation. Excelsa, a member of the Liberica family, grows in the wild in parts of coastal Karnataka and produces large, irregularly shaped beans with a distinctive flavour profile: deep, woody, slightly tart, with a complex fruit-and-spice character that is unlike any Arabica or Robusta on the market. Komal and Akshay have invested years in understanding how to process Excelsa to specialty standards, and the results have stunned buyers at international trade shows.

On the Arabica and Robusta side, the estate employs carbonic maceration, yeast inoculation, and carefully controlled anaerobic fermentation to develop flavour profiles of extraordinary complexity: fermented red fruit, dried fig, black grape, and mulberry on the best lots. Sustainability is not an afterthought here but a founding principle - solar power generates much of the estate's energy, no weedicides are used on the majority of the farm's blocks, minimal synthetic fertiliser is applied, and a community plastic-free recycling scheme operates year-round. Mooleh Manay is, in many ways, the estate that best represents the new generation of Indian specialty coffee: scientifically rigorous, ecologically responsible, and thrillingly original.