KOCHI, India – Baba Budangiri, 250 km from Bengaluru, where coffee was first grown in India, is going for Geographical Indication (GI) of its variety of Arabica, Indian media report.
On January 1, the Coffee Board of India filed an application for the GI tagging of Baba Budangiri Arabica and four other varieties — Coorg Arabica, Wayanad Robusta, Chikmagalur Arabic and Araku Valley Arabica — with the Geographical Indication Registry at Chennai, says the same source.
Coffee Board head (coffee quality) K Basavaraj said: “We have applied for the GI marker and we are also profiling the majority variety grown in Baba Budangiri, a variety called Selection-795,” Basavaraj said.
Selection-795 (S-795) is considered to be the natural descendant of two of the oldest African cultivars of coffee — Coffea Arabica and Coffea Liberica — and a third variety is called Kent. Currently, S-795 is the most prominent coffee grown at Baba Budangiri.
Today, Baba Budangiri Arabica is grown across 15,000 hectares around the original hills, where it was first planted.
