Sipping Legacy: Discover the Stories Behind Every Cup

The story of Coelho’s Gold began a long time ago, in a land far far away. More than 500 years ago, legend has it that a Sufi saint named Baba Budan, a holy man on his way back from his pilgrimage to Mecca, smuggled 7 live seeds out of Arabia and planted them in the misty hills Chikmagalur.

Centuries later, the British created plantations and estates throughout this region and the district of Chikmagalur, along with Coorg, is still one of two main coffee growing areas in India.

Coelho’s Gold is grown on the rain fed slopes of the Mallasiana Gudda coffee estate; a historic coffee plantation that was established more than 150 years ago and named after the very hill it encompasses. The estate came into the Coelho family in 1970, when my father bought it and has, since then, perfected and proved itself as the ideal environment in which to grow truly world class coffee.

Arabica is grown high up on the mountain, at an elevation of 1000 – 1100 mt. above sea level, under a double layer of shade trees and along steep valleys that wash the surfeit of rain that the region is famous for down into the valley below. These nebulous slopes offer the ideal agro-climactic and soil conditions that produce Arabica with a distinct, delicate and unmatched flavour. The lower reaches of the estate produce Robusta, also shade-grown in ideal conditions, and Chikmagalur Robusta is among the most acclaimed Robustas in the world. 

Under the watchful eye of the Coelho family, the entire process, from the nurturing of every plant, to the harvesting and processing of the coffee bean, to the roasting and blending, is informed and articulated by the land itself: the delicate dance of nature and humans and the magic that it can produce.  It is this story, a journey of centuries and mythic proportions, that you taste every morning with your cup of Coelho’s Gold.