Karadykan was started in the early 1900s by Charles and William Crawford and was taken over by K.S. Vaidyanathan, Mr. Appadurai's grandfather, after independence.
The estate sits in the Bababudangiri hills of Chikmagalur at 1,200 to 1,400 MASL, spread across approximately 250 hectares. Its local nickname is Trishul, after the three hills that surround it on all sides. The estate features a large stream running through it, fed by natural springs. he self-contained geography, three hills forming a natural enclosure with spring-fed water flowing through the middle, gives Karadykan a particular microclimate that stays consistent across seasons.
The farm grows a wide range of species: Arabica including Sln 9, Sln 795, HDT x Catuai, Chandragiri, and Catimor; Canephora including Peradeniya, CxR, and Sln 274; and Liberica. This breadth is unusual. Most Indian specialty estates focus on Arabica alone. Karadykan growing all three species, including the rare Liberica, makes it one of the more ecologically and agronomically interesting farms in the country.
One of the estate's most remarkable features is a 100-year-old, 12-foot water wheel that operates by gravity and generates hydroelectric power for coffee pulping. A century-old machine, still doing exactly what it was built to do, still running entirely on the water that flows through this land. That kind of continuity is hard to manufacture.
Indian gaur and spotted deer move through the estate in herds. The farm also supports 75 families who live and work on the land, and includes an in-house 20-bed hospital and a day creche for workers' children, called Prakriya. The Appadurais introduced practices including multiple rounds of ripe cherry picking and lot-wise separation to ensure peak flavour and traceability, and post-harvest processing is carried out at Lakshmi Curing Works in Hassan, giving full control from farm to cup.
Out of all the coffee they grow, this was our favourite