Gundikhan Estate
Baba Budan Giri Hills, Chikmagalur
The Land
Coffee grown a few kilometres from where it all began
Gundikhan sits in the Baba Budan Giri hills of Chikmagalur, the same range where, in 1670, seven smuggled coffee seeds were first planted in India. The estate shares a boundary with the Bhadra Tiger Reserve, and it shows: elephants, bison and birdlife move freely through land that could easily have been cleared for higher yields.
Instead, Saif intercrops his coffee with eleven varieties of tropical fruit and spice, in soil that runs unusually rich in iron. It's a harder way to farm. It's also why this cup tastes like nowhere else.
- Region
- Chikmagalur, Karnataka
- Altitude
- 1,300 to 1,400 masl
- Varietal
- Chandragiri (Sarchimore)
- Soil
- Mineral-rich, high iron
The Farmer
"His heart was always back home with the coffee plantations."
Saif Ulla, Curator, Gundikhan Estate
Saif studied management at Leeds Beckett University and was working at Tesco in the UK when he decided, in 2015, to come home. He tore out the estate’s old plants and replanted with Chandragiri, a Sarchimore cross developed by the Coffee Board of India, and rebuilt the farm around one idea: cup quality first, yield second. Today Gundikhan is one of the finest-growing estates in the country, and Saif still walks the rows himself.
From this estate
Our offering from Gundikhan
Same farm, same farmer, three different expressions, each with its own character.
Natural 
Washed 
Washed