News of Odisha government’s plan to open coffee brewing outlets in prominent towns under the brand name of Koraput Coffee and the inauguration of a mini coffee curing unit at the district headquarters town of Koraput must be giving goosebumps to the original coffee man of Odisha – Pradeep Kumar Mohanty.
“Specially designed coffee brewing outlets in prominent towns in Odisha will come up under the brand name of Koraput Coffee. Now, roasting, grinding, packaging and branding of coffee beans will be done by the administration in association with the tribal development cooperative corporation (TDCC),” Koraput Collector Madhusudan Mishra said on the sidelines of the inauguration of the mini coffee curing unit.
The products are now available online at www.adisha.in and www.amazon.in. Besides, TDCCOL will market the product through 11 retail outlets under ‘ADISHA’.
Mohanty, also called ‘Coffee Budha’ (Coffee Patriach) can be credited with Odisha’s tryst with coffee way back in the 1980s. He embraced the hostile hills of the Eastern ghats by putting his green finger into them and starting coffee cultivation. The botanist-turned-farmer transformed sleepy tribal hamlets like Sundhiput and Nuaput in Koraput district into active agro zones and gave employment to hundreds of villagers.
Not an easy journey
Bringing Odisha on the coffee map of India was no mean task for Mohanty. Inspired by the stories of foreign coffee planters, Mohanty left his job at the Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, in 1982 to locate land for his pet project and zeroed in on Sundhiput where there were no roads or electricity. Mohanty lived in a tent.
The next step was to convince the non-tribal locals to sell him fallow tracts since there were restrictions on sale of land belonging to tribals.
With no roads and electricity, Mohanty operated from a borrowed portable tent trying to convince the non-tribal locals to sell him fallow tracts since there were restrictions on sale of land belonging to tribals. He managed to get only 25 acres and started cultivating coffee in 1987.
He expanded his base gradually, buying more non-tribal land in Nuapat village.
Sustenance was not easy in the hills and forests, especially since there was no motivation from the government. He survived by sowing quick crops like pulses and vegetables.
Mohanty could not make the coffee grown in Koraput a brand name then but thanks to his pioneering efforts, his dream has come true now.
