This wonderful find coming from the Araku Valley, an isolated area of 11 hills inhabited by the Adivāsi people, the aboriginal population of this area. Coffee came to the area with the British in 1920. The Naandi Foundation, India’s largest social charity, started development in Araku Valley in 1999, in what was then, one of the most impoverished parts of India. They supported the Adivāsi providing basic needs and most importantly providing schooling for daughters, and by reducing maternal mortality from one of the highest rates to almost zero. Given the history of the area growing coffee, this became the cash crop to getting these people to move out of total poverty. Naandi organised tribal farmers and in 2005, commissioned a processing unit, they helped with Fair Trade certification and by eliminating the middle man allowed profits to be put back into the community, increasing earnings by 10 times. This coffee is the successful product of a partnership between the Small and Marginal Tribal Farmer’s Cooperative Society, Naandi Foundation and Araku Original Limited. We have had this dark roasted and hope you enjoy this rather special coffee.
