Ashok Patre - Ratnagiri Estate

about the producer.

Ashok Patre is one of Nemesis’ very first producer partners and Ratnagiri Estate has been a mainstay on our espresso bar over the years. Ashok Patre’s grandfather, Patre K Shivappaiya established the farm in 1927, when the land was mostly jungle and began planting coffee seeds two years later with the first harvest taking place in 1934. Located in the richly biodiverse Western Ghats of South India, Ratnagiri is part of a tiger reserve and home to over 48 recorded bird populations, monkeys, leopards, wild boar, mongoose and - on occasion - elephants.

Ashok and his family prioritise harmony with the surrounding environment, maintaining official Rainforest Alliance Certification and effectively operating as a biodynamic farm. Quarterly soil tests and organic corrections to soil are applied including ionic seawater and seaweed extract to improve plant immunity and sugar levels of the fruit. The estate is lush with 3 stories of shade trees controlled by professional workers regulating each individual tree to achieve the optimal 50% shade coverage. In doing so, the environment for fungus is minimized while still maintaining access to the sun for photosynthesis. The farm switched from concrete to tile surfaces to avoid potential acid formation during fermentation.

The farm was handed from father to son and Ashok Patre is now the 3rd generation of his family to cultivate coffee. When he took over the farm in 1989 Ashok focused on replanting new varieties and turning the Ratnagiri’s focus towards specialty coffee. Since then, the team at Ratnagiri have established 2 core pillars of their vision.

First, elevating Indian Coffee to the world stage. Through careful cultivation and meticulous processing they strive to create a product that rivals the best specialty coffees from around the globe and showcases the immense potential of Indian beans.

Second, by pioneering a future of innovation and consistency they aspire to propel Indian coffee to new heights and carve a path towards the next frontier of excellence. With an approach of implementing rigorous scientific methods of experimentation and constant improvement Ashok and his team have introduced modern agricultural methods and since 2016 continuously experimented with post-harvest processing from honey and natural processed coffees to anaerobic fermentations and yeast inoculation.

about the coffee.

Caturra and catuai varieties grown between 1200 - 1500 metres above sea level are picked at peak ripeness and then further sorted for consistency and quality. Divya Patre oversees the harvesting protocols and team training to select only the perfect cherries.

The coffee is then treated to the state of the art processing protocol developed by Ashok Patre and his team. First the cherries are pulped using an ecopulper that reduces water usage by 65%, additionally sorting and washing the cherries. The coffee then undergoes an extended fermentation of 42-72 hrs to fully develop the unique flavours of this lot. The mucilage is then washed away before the clean parchment is dried in the purpose-built ventilated greenhouses where tiered drying beds offer controlled and slow drying to ideal moisture and water activity levels. Finally the dried parchment goes to the onsite dry milling facility where the green beans are hulled, screen and density sorted and defects are removed.

Ratngiri Estate manages every step in the quality control process from the soil and planting through to the final steps of sorting prior to export. The result is exceptionally clean and consistent coffees.

about the producer.