The Real Face of Our Coffee

"My grandfather planted these rows. I know every root, every slope. When a visitor asks how long it takes to learn coffee, I say — a lifetime, and you still don't know all of it."

Murugesan has worked the Mirras estate since 1997, following his father and grandfather before him. He oversees the harvesting schedule, reads soil and weather to decide cherry timing, and has trained 14 younger workers in the past decade. Ask him when a cherry is ready and he will show you — he does not look at a calendar.

"Every morning I walk the rows before the coffee pickers arrive. If the cherries aren't right, we don't harvest that section. One wrong batch ruins the whole lot's grade."

Rajan has supervised estate operations for 22 years. He determines daily harvesting areas based on cherry ripeness, weather, and soil moisture. Every batch that leaves the processing unit carries his QA sign-off. He has turned down 6 full lots in the last 3 years for failing cup-test standards — they went to compost, not to a discount buyer.

"Spent coffee pulp and husks go back to the soil they came from. Nothing is wasted on this estate. The compost pile is the most important thing I manage."

Dharmaraj built the estate's zero-chemical composting programme from scratch in 2013. Spent coffee pulp, shade-tree cuttings, and kitchen scraps are composted in a 3-stage pit system he designed. The output replaces all chemical fertiliser on the estate. He runs quarterly soil-health audits and shares data with the harvesting team. The estate has been 100% synthetic-fertiliser-free since 2015.