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  Pune, India
Saturday, January 14, 2006

January 14th, 2006

Hello!
I have not been in civilization in order to send off emails to you all. I wrote the following on January 11th, but have not been able to send it until right now. I will be in major cities from here on out and so will get you all up to date with my travels:

January 11th
I am amazed at the beauty of this country. The Southern part of India so far has comprised of a lot of very forested hills and valleys. Our 4 hour drive yesterday from Hassen to Madikeri in the Coorg distrist is lush and abundant in vegetation." The Ghats" is the topographical term used to describe the region. Rice paddy's are common along the side of the road. It has truly been a whirlwind trip so far. Doctor Rannadey, who has invited us on this trip has been an excellent host, but a hard task master! We are typically up and out the door by 7AM to visit up to 4 plantations in a day. Each plantation owners family feeds us and treats us royally. By the time we end up at our destination for the day, finishing up with a light meal and a coctail it is 11pm at night. The purpose of this trip is to introduce the United States market to Indian coffee as a specialty coffee. They have been growing coffee here for a long time. Many of the plantations we have visited have been in the family for 6 generations. They have missed out on the booming specialty coffee market so far, because they have always sold they're coffee as "coffee from India" Instead, in the specialty market, the roaster and the consumer quite often want to know exactly what region the coffee they are drinking came from. As a roaster, we are more assured of knowing that the consistency in the cup will be year after year. This is where Dr. Rannady comes in. He is a genial 60+ gentleman. In his younger days, he was trained as an anesthesiologist. When his father fell ill, he came back to work with him in the micronutrient business that his father had established years before. He has continued to grow the business and saw the need to not only increase the health of the coffee tree, but the health of the coffee market. I met a gentleman last night at dinner who sevves on the Coffee Advisory Board of India and stated that Dr. Rannadey has done what no one in the industry has been able to do.

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