Growing and roasting gourmet coffee beans in India

A worker picks coffee beans on Tarun Cariappa’s farm in Chettalli, India. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Dec. 8, 2014 1:51 PM PT

A handful of Indian farmers and entrepreneurs are attempting to hook some of their tea-loving compatriots on coffee by selling gourmet, freshly roasted beans to a burgeoning urban middle class.

Workers place coffee beans into sacks for weighing on the Udayagiri estate in Chettalli, India. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Indian coffee farmer Tarun Cariappa shows dried beans from his farm in Chettalli. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Tej Thammaiah inspects a coffee plant on his farm in Karnataka, southern India. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)

Kunal Ross, founder of TheIndianBean.com, a website that sells Indian specialty coffees, brews coffee at a food fair in Mumbai, India. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times)