The story
Tradition holds that the Sufi saint Baba Budan brought seven coffee seeds from Yemen in the 17th century and planted them in the Chandragiri hills, now called Bababudangiri. British planters later spread coffee estates across the district's shaded hill slopes. Coffee is grown under forest shade with pepper vines on the shade trees. Chikmagalur Arabica and Bababudangiris Arabica coffee have GI tags, and the Central Coffee Research Institute is at Balehonnur in the district.
In numbers
Karnataka is India's largest coffee producer, with 248,020 MT in 2022-23, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Indian coffee brews global demand with exports reaching $1.29 billion in FY 2023-24 (AgroSpectrum) · 2025
GI tag
- Chikmagalur Arabica CoffeeApplication no. GI application no. 606Registration details of Geographical Indications (IP India GI Registry)
- Bababudangiris Arabica CoffeeApplication no. GI application no. 608Registration details of Geographical Indications (IP India GI Registry)
Ways in for a newcomer
- Roast and sell single-estate specialty coffee online
- Run a coffee curing or roasting unit
- Homestays and estate tourism
- Process pepper and cardamom grown on estates
Problems the cluster faces
- Erratic monsoon and climate change
- Labour shortage on estates
- Global coffee price swings
- Human-elephant conflict
Businesses to start here
Coffee Flavoured Milk (Bottled) Plant →Coffee Scrub Manufacturing Unit →Black Pepper Cleaning & Grinding Unit →Agro-Tourism Farm →