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Cupping: a strategic function at Tata Coffee
Aparna Datta
It's one of three cup-tasting facilities existing within the private sector that are accredited by the Coffee Board. That's a distinction in itself for the cupping unit at the Tata Coffee Limited R&G Factory at Panthrapalya Village, Mysore Road, Bangalore. But while the other two - Coffeelab Pvt. Ltd. and Adam & Company both based in Bangalore - are essentially quality evaluation centres, the Tata Coffee cupping facility is an integral part of the production process at the R&G factory, making it a unique cupping laboratory in India, if not Asia!
Set up in 1993, the R&G factory produces retail packs of 'Coorg 100% Pure Filter Coffee' and 'Coorg Double Roast', besides premium blends of roasted beans for select institutional customers such as Barista Coffee Company. The inauguration of the factory had marked a major milestone in the history of what was then known as Consolidated Coffee Limited, with the liberalisation of the coffee sector allowing plantation companies to freely market their produce. Value-addition through branded and packaged coffee was seen to be a strategic imperative, and the 'Coorg' brand was an important entry into the retail coffee segment.
The key aspect is that this cup-tasting unit plays a role in quality control by providing critical analyses and data that feedback both upstream to the management on the plantations, and downstream to the production and marketing teams. In effect, the unit performs an economic function, beyond a service role, since the quality evaluation and recommendations made by this unit would have an impact on the bottom line of the company.
As India's largest integrated coffee company, producing 10,000 tonnes of coffee annually, with some 6,000 tonnes being converted into value-added products, the sheer scale of operations at Tata Coffee is another reason why this cup-tasting facility is so critical. It's a responsibility that K Manoharan, Sr. Manager - Quality Control & Production based at the R&G Factory, handles with ease, given his previous experience at the Quality Lab at Coffee Board. "With our volumes of processed coffee, cupping has a direct impact on the economics of bulking", says Manoharan.
Cupping at Tata Coffee is a bold initiative that is being keenly studied in academic circles. "We regularly interact with experts at the Indian Institute of Plantation Management (IIPM), and often get agricultural university students visiting us", says
B G Ponnappa, Manager - Factory in-charge & Production, who has been with the R&G unit since inception. Certainly, this is a case study of how cupping can be integrated into the production process to achieve a qualitatively better product.
The cup-tasting facility at the R&G Factory networks closely with the cupping facility attached to the Tata Coffee Kushalnagar coffee curing works, besides the Research Department at the head office at Polibetta, and the cupping facility attached to the instant coffee manufacturing unit of Tata Coffee at Hyderabad. Collectively, the cup-tasting units of Tata Coffee represent an important asset for Indian coffee. The experience of Tata Coffee in cup-tasting holds significance for the entire Indian coffee industry and is a vivid demonstration of how the cupping culture may be adopted on a company-wide basis as a quality measure.
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