Araku Valley’s Famous Coffee Will Soon Be Available In Paris

Araku Valley’s famous coffee will soon reach Paris thanks to efforts from four major business leaders and tribals from the valley. This will go a long way in helping the tribals who live in the valley earn a sustainable, regular income.

The History Of Coffee In Araku Valley

Araku Valley is a hill station in Andhra Pradesh’s Eastern Ghats, close to the Odisha state border. Many tribals reside in the valley which is also a popular spot for local tourists.

In the late 1800s, the British began growing coffee in the Eastern Ghats; by the 1920s the practice had spread to the Araku Valley with tribal farmers managing and farming on coffee plantations. In the late 1900s, thanks to efforts from the Andhra Pradesh Forest Development Corporation and the formation of the Andhra Pradesh Girijan Cooperative Corporation Limited, which was responsible for promoting coffee plantations, coffee growing became a larger practice and a means of income for tribals.

Coffee in the Araku valley is organic and grown alongside mango, jackfruit and banana trees. It has been lauded  for its unique flavour thanks to soil quality.

Araku Coffee Goes International

Recently, Anand Mahindra, the chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra, Kris Gopalkrishnan, the co-founder of Infosys, Rajendra Prasad Maganti, the chairman of Soma Enterprise and Satish Reddy, the chairman of Dr Reddy’s laboratories joined forces to take Arak coffee into the international market.

The coffee will soon be available in Parsi in five variants – the most expensive of which will be Rs.7000 a kilogram.

“We want to make Araku a gourmet coffee brand, acceptable in global markets and that’s why we chose Paris for the debut,” said to the Times of India. Profits earned from the sales of the coffee will be used to enhance the lives of the farmers who grow it.