When we talk about Indian coffee, the conversation almost always starts — and ends — in Karnataka. Coorg, Chikmagalur, Bababudangiri. These are the names that appear on menus, in guides, in the minds of even dedicated specialty drinkers. And they deserve their reputation. But India is a vast country with extraordinary growing diversity, and Karnataka is only one corner of it.
Odisha is another corner entirely. One of India's 16 recognised coffee-growing regions, sitting quietly on the eastern coast, facing the Bay of Bengal, almost invisible to the international specialty world. We went there because we believe the best Indian coffees are the ones nobody has found yet. What we found in Koraput confirmed it.
The Coromandel Coast is Odisha's coastline. Our name was always pointing here.
THE NAME
We named our Spring release Kalinga — and we didn't choose the name lightly. Kalinga was one of the most formidable empires of the ancient world, occupying the eastern coast of India from around the 3rd century BCE. Its territory covered what is now most of Odisha, and its power stretched from the Ganges to the Godavari river.
Kalinga was known for its fierce warriors, its maritime trade networks connecting India with Southeast Asia, and its immense cultural influence. It is perhaps best known in history as the empire whose defeat changed the course of civilisation. In 261 BCE, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka invaded Kalinga in one of the ancient world's bloodiest wars. Hundreds of thousands died. The carnage so horrified Ashoka that he converted to Buddhism, renounced violence, and spent the rest of his reign building one of history's first welfare states. The Battle of Kalinga didn't just end an empire. It changed a man. And that man changed the world.
The Eastern Ganga's later ruled Kalinga through what is considered its golden age —building the temple of Jagannatha at Puri and the extraordinary Sun Temple at Konark. The name Kalinga persisted through centuries of dynasties. It persists still — in Odisha's identity, in its institutions, in the UNESCO Kalinga Prize, and now, we hope, in a cup of coffee.
An empire that changed the course of history. A region that changed how we think about Indian coffee. The name felt right.
THE REGION
Koraput district sits in Odisha's southern tip, where the Eastern Ghats fold into one another at 900 metres. The air is cool and misted. The soil is red-brown and forest- fed. The hills catch the rain off the Bay of Bengal and hold it. It is, in short, exactly what coffee wants.
The region is also home to some of India's most significant tribal communities —the Bhumia, Gond, Paraja, Kondh, Koya, and others — whose relationship with this land goes back centuries. The forests they have protected are the same forests that shade the coffee now.
A HISTORY IN THREE ACTS
1930s
The Maharaja of Jeypore — Rajbahadur Rama Chandra Deo — plants the first coffee in Odisha on the reddish soil of Bichalkota village. British planters had noticed the hills reminded them of the Nilgiris. The experiment works. Then, after independence and the abolition of the zamindari system, the plantations fall quiet.
1982
A botanist named Pradeep Kumar Mohanty abandons his doctoral research, goes on a solo journey through Odisha, and pitches a tent on barren hillside near the Deomali range. With no roads, no electricity, and no guarantees, he plants coffee. The first wave of modern estate farming follows a decade later.
2017–2021
The Coffee Development Trust is formed. The Odisha government begin serious investment: processing centres, tribal land rights, farmer cooperatives. On International Coffee Day 2021, the Chief Minister raises a cup of Koraput Coffee at an official launch. The region finds its name.
NOW
Koraput coffee has been served at the World Coffee Conference. It's been called comparable to Colombia and Brazil. It is still, somehow, almost unknown in the UK. We'd like to change that.
THE FARM
In 2014, Mrs T. Nirmala Reddy lost her husband. Weeks later, Cyclone Hudhud tore through the crop. Most people would have walked away. She didn't. She held the land together. Her daughter Rajeshwari flew back from Australia. And slowly, quietly, they didn't just save Madhu Agro Plantation — they rebuilt it into something entirely their own. Today it's the only women-run coffee farm in the Koraput region: 45 acres of shade-grown, intercropped abundance, staffed almost entirely by women from the surrounding tribal villages. We're also working with a tribal cooperative in the region to bring a second Odisha coffee later in the year. This is, we hope, the beginning of a long relationship.
THE COFFEE
Chandragiri Arabica, processed through sequential fermentation — a method that takes considerably more time and care than a standard washed process, and produces something considerably more interesting.
STAGE 01 — DRY FERMENTATION
After pulping, the beans go into closed barrels for 16 hours. No water — just the bean and its natural microbial environment, slowly building sweetness and complexity.
STAGE 02 — PARTIAL WASH + WET FERMENTATION
A partial wash, then straight back in for a second 12-hour fermentation, submerged in water. This stage refines the cup, adding clarity and brightness.
STAGE 03 — FINAL WASH
A full wash locks everything in at exactly the right moment. The result is a coffee that is clean and structured, but with depth that a single fermentation rarely achieves. It's more work. But you taste it. In the cup you have milk chocolate, caramel, orange, almond.
India has been growing coffee since the 17th century. The western regions have had centuries of recognition. Odisha has had less than a decade of it. We're early and that's the point.
Kalinga is available now at all six FILTR locations across South London and online. When it's gone, it's gone — the next Odisha release won't be until later in the year.