Coffee Planting

The drinking of coffee was popular in England as early as the 1600s. The first coffee house was opened in Oxford in 1650 and London’s first coffee house was opened in 1652.

There is a legend that coffee arrived in India about this same time when Baba Budan smuggled seven coffee seeds into the country after his pilgrimage to Yemen. This gave rise to the cultivation of coffee in Chikmagalur in the, now Baba Budangiri, hills of southern India.

In 1773 antagonism arose in the British colonies – particularly North America- against the East India Company’s monopoly of the tea trade. This resulted in the Boston Tea Party, (wherein tea, carried by the East India Company to Boston harbour, was thrown overboard into the water), - which was one of the events leading up to the subsequent American War of Independence. The effects of this also rebounded on the coffee trade – as can be evidenced by the 1780 Europa Act .

The coffee industry has remained centred in the hills of Southern India. The early nineteenth century saw an increased growth in coffee planting – the activity having spread to the Shevaroy Hills (notably at Yercaud) and the Niligiris (Kotagiri and Coonoor). This was not long after the first coffee house in India had opened in Calcutta(c 1780) which was followed by others – thus increasing its popularity as a fashionable drink.

It is noted that Catherine Falls near Kotagiri is named after the wife of M D Cockburn, district collector of Salem, who is said to be the person responsible for introducing the coffee plant to Yercaud in 1820. In 1843 he established the first coffee estate in Kotagiri.

External links

Historical books online

• A Handbook to coffee planting in Southern India by John Short (1864). Particularly useful for its list of coffee planters on the Shevaroy and Niligiri Hills and descriptions of these estates (pages 164-176)
• On the Indian Hills : Or, Coffee Planting in Southern India by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold. Limited preview,google books
• Gold. Sport and Coffee Planting in Mysore by Robert H Elliott (2007) – original copyright 1898. Limited preview, google books
• Coffee planting in Southern India and Ceylon by ECP Hull (1877) Archive.org

Other

• Indian filter coffee Wikipedia. Gives an interesting account of coffee drinking habits with topical quotes.
• M D Cockburn Wikipedia
• Early Coffee plantations in the Wayanad India List post which contains an extract from a relevant publication.
• "Evolution of Plantations, Migration, and Population Growth in Nilgiris and Coorg (South India)" by Steen Folke, Geografisk Tidsskrift Bind 65 (1966)
• "The white planter’s exalted club" by Shashikiran Mullur, The Deccan Herald (2009). Recalls British coffee planters in the town of Munzerabad (Sakleshpur). Picture.