‘Brewed in India, loved by the world’: How this homegrown coffee went global, and why PM Modi’s talking about it now

In Mann Ki Baat, Modi spotlights Odisha’s Koraput coffee, praises farmers who left corporate jobs to grow the brew now making India proud abroad

India’s coffee story has quietly gone global, and this week, it found a spot in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat. What began decades ago as a plantation crop tucked into the hills of Karnataka and Kerala is now a billion-dollar export with a new hero: Koraput coffee from Odisha. Modi’s mention wasn’t just a passing shoutout. It was part recognition, part signal, that India’s local brews are becoming global ambassadors of taste, enterprise, and identity.

Picking up from where he left off last year when he spoke about Araku coffee of Andhra Pradesh, the prime minister this time shone the spotlight on Koraput coffee of Odisha, a brew that’s quietly gaining recognition worldwide.

“Indian coffee is becoming very popular all over the world,” Modi said, listing out the country’s lush coffee-growing regions, Chikmagalur, Coorg, Hassan in Karnataka; Pulney, Shevaroy, Nilgiri and Annamalai in Tamil Nadu; the Biligiri region straddling Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; and Wayanad, Travancore, and Malabar in Kerala.

He noted how people from Odisha had written to him, asking that Koraput coffee get its due recognition on Mann Ki Baat. “I was told that Koraput coffee tastes amazing, and beyond the taste, it’s transforming lives,” he said.

PM Modi narrated stories of individuals in Koraput who traded their corporate jobs for coffee plantations out of sheer passion. “They liked coffee so much that they entered this field and are now successfully working in it,” he said.

He also praised the many women who have found financial independence through coffee cultivation, calling it an example of how India’s rural economy is being reshaped by innovation and self-reliance.

“The efforts of these people are strengthening Indian coffee’s identity worldwide,” the prime minister said, concluding with a line that summed up his message, “India’s coffee is coffee at its finest. It is brewed in India and loved by the world.”

Over the centuries, coffee in India has evolved from a niche crop to a global commodity. Today, India ranks as the seventh-largest coffee producer in the world, exporting beans worth $1.29 billion in FY 2023–24, nearly double the $719 million recorded in 2020–21, according to the Commerce Ministry.

The country’s coffee is primarily grown in the biodiversity-rich Western and Eastern Ghats, with Karnataka leading production, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Roughly three-fourths of India’s coffee output is Arabica and Robusta, exported mostly as unroasted beans. But the shift is changing fast, the demand for roasted and instant coffee is surging both domestically and internationally, adding new momentum to India’s value-added coffee exports.