As meta as it sounds, something is brewing in the world of brew. Forget, for a minute, how many coffee chains have cropped up in your neighbourhood. Forget about roasts, Black-Cat Frappucinos, and why hipsters don’t talk about cold brew anymore. And focus on the bean.
About 99% of the world’s coffee comes from the Arabica or Robusta species of the plant. India, the sixth-largest producer, grows them both. A whole 70.3% of our coffee is Robusta: Hardy, thirsty, high-caffeine, the kind that goes into instant coffee and espresso mixes. The rest, roughly, is Arabica, the refined, fussy cousin from the higher slopes; who likes the cold, and delivers more flavour than kick. Arabica is the bean that’s keeping India’s specialty chains in business.
For now. Because as the world keeps getting hotter, growing Arabica is becoming something of an adventure sport. Arabica thrives best between 15°C and 24°C. When temperatures cross 30°C, the plant’s leaves scorch, making it vulnerable to pests and cause it to drop coffee berries before they’re ready. Not a good look. In 2019, the bean was officially categorised as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Plantations globally are growing more Robusta, which flourishes in the 22°C to 30°C range. But there might be hope behind Door Number Three.
Indian growers are adding more diverse species to their estates, ones that promise to be resilient and easy on the palate too. Excelsa, Libex and Gesha are now pouring at a café near you. Might this be the future of your wake-up juice?
Beanie babies
Growing up in the 1990s, Akshay Dashrath, now 41, remembers seeing distinctly taller coffee plants that his grandfather GM Gopalkrishna planted at the borders of the family estate Mooleh Manay in Coorg, Karnataka. The West-African species has been growing in south India since the 1800s, thanks to the efforts of the British planter Colonel Benson. Those Excelsas stretched up to 20 feet, twice as tall as the tallest Robustas and Arabicas, did fine in the heat, and were resistant to leaf rust and white stem borer, two diseases that plagued Indian coffee estates. They were great for fencing in a property. And Excelsa coffee was served at home.
Dashrath founded South India Coffee Company (SICC), a research, cultivation, infrastructure and supply organisation, with his wife Komal Sable, in 2017. When he teamed up with scientists at the UK’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, to study the Liberica and Excelsa genome, Dashrath brought coffee from his own estate. Their 2026 paper in Scientific Reports confirms that India not only grows Excelsa, but a homegrown hybrid called Libex (found at Malleshwara Estate, in Karnataka) that thrives at lower elevations and high-heat areas, holding up admirably against drought and leaf rust.
Both spell good news. They widen the range of climates in which coffee can be sustainably grown here. And the coffee flavours they yield are lighter, lower in caffeine.
From the ground up
Excelsa is hardier than even Robusta, a species that doesn’t mind a hot summer, but whose shallow roots need constant irrigation – disastrous in India’s increasingly unreliable monsoon. “This year due to the weak monsoon, many of our tanks are empty,” says Rishwin Devaya, founder of Riverside Coffee in Coorg, that grows Excelsa, Arabica and Robusta. “I may have to irrigate the plants with a high-pressure nozzle to keep the Robusta plants healthy.”
Excelsa has been inching into the menus of Indian specialty coffee chains. Devaya says that newly minted coffee enthusiasts who do not want the caffeine jitters are particularly curious about his 100% Excelsa roast. SICC is focusing its efforts on Excelsa too. “We grow it across four acres at Mooleh Manay, along the fences and in between the Arabica plants,” says Sable. “It tolerates lower altitudes, grows without much attention, and is not as sensitive as Arabica and Robusta. We work on what to plant now, so partner farms are still producing specialty coffee in 20 years.”
Rahul Reddy, founder of Subko Coffee Roasters, which runs cafés across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Dubai put Excelsa on their menus in 2022. It’s available as a medium roast whole bean or ground to a buyer’s specification, to be enjoyed as a pour over. “It can show tropical characteristics, spice, wine-like notes and complex aromatics,” says Reddy. “We release Excelsa at different points through the year, with two over the past four months: One from SICC and the other from Badra Estate in Chikmagalur.” It costs more than Robusta but roughly the same as Arabica. It’s not going to be anyone’s everyday brew yet, but it’s helping people appreciate a flavour they didn’t know existed before.
This smells new
At Chennai’s specialty-brand Beachville Coffee Roasters, founder Divya Jayashankar knew she couldn’t introduce an entirely new bean in June 2024 without prepping patrons for it. “Arabica has acidic notes, while Robusta has a nutty profile, with some caramel and chocolate,” she says. Libex yields a floral fragrance, cherry-like fruit, orange rind, with a heavy body and long aftertaste. “But Excelsa is fruit-forward, with notes of berry, red grape and fermented fruit, with a heavier body than Arabica,” she says.
Roasters in India often craft a 70% Arabica-30% Excelsa blend for pour overs. Pranoy Thipaiah, who started growing Excelsa at his Kerehaklu Estate in Chikmagalur around 2020-2021, has been shipping it to Red Bank Coffee Roasters in the UK and is part of a seed exchange with the Vietnamese coffee brand 96B. “We now have eight new varietals from their collection in our arsenal,” he says. Meanwhile, SICC took Indian Libex beans to the London Coffee Festival this year, where there were comparison tastings between the Indian Libex and the Sarawak (Malaysian) species. It created quite a buzz.
The Gesha arrives
Even within elite coffee circles, Gesha beans are something of a rarity. The champagne of coffees arrived late to the party and later still to India. Prakashan Balaraman introduced the seeds domestically when he planted them on his Riverdale Estate, Yercaud, in 2017. The bean was discovered in the Gori Gesha forests of Ethiopia, moved through Tanzania and Costa Rica in the 1930s, and has thrived in high-altitude volcanic Panama soil since the 1950s. Would it also flourish in the humbler Shevaroy Hills and shaded slopes of Tamil Nadu?
So far, it has, with enough of a harvest for Riverdale to introduce its Gesha at Subko last month. The beans are grown, harvested, processed naturally, with a light roast to give it a pomelo-like acidity that transitions into apricot sweetness, finishing with notes of Earl Grey. As Reddy watches coffee enthusiasts nerd out over the unusual brew, paying ₹2,800 for 200 grams of a natural light roast, he’s looking at the big picture. He acknowledges that it’s easier to buy Ethiopian Gesha, simply because there’s so little of the Indian version. “But rarity alone is not enough. The higher price point has to be supported by real value.”
Excelsa, Libex and Gesha collectively make up less than 2% of India’s coffee production. And pricing is not standardised across the country. So, profits will be slow.
But Door Number Three has opened a little more. At SICC Labs, there are 14 living specimens across Arabica, Robusta, Indian varietals and lesser-known species, which are being studied for how well they’ll take to India’s warming estates and uncertain monsoon. Sable is cautiously optimistic. “As more good-quality Excelsa reaches the market and roasters understand how to work with it, demand should grow alongside production. Real growth will come when demand gives growers the confidence to plant, and increased production then makes Excelsa more accessible to drinkers.”
From HT Brunch, September 26, 2026
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