Yercaud Coffee & Pepper Estate Tour

The Shevaroy Hills

Yercaud — 'Lake of the Forest' — sits in the Shevaroy Hills of Salem district, less visited than the Nilgiris but equally green and far more intimate. The estate you visit has been growing coffee since the 1890s, when a British planter first cleared forest on these slopes. Today it produces robusta and arabica coffee alongside Malabar pepper that climbs the shade trees.

Estate Walk

The walk follows shaded paths through coffee rows, past pepper vines climbing jack trees, and along a stream that feeds the estate's processing area. Your guide — the estate's agricultural manager — explains the difference between robusta (grown lower, caffeine-heavy, good for espresso) and arabica (grown higher, nuanced, good for filter), and why Yercaud's climate suits both.

Processing & Cupping

At the estate's wet-processing unit, you see coffee cherries being depulped, fermented, washed, and sun-dried on raised beds. In the cupping room, you sample four preparations: a light-roast pour-over, a dark-roast French press, a traditional filter coffee, and an iced coffee with jaggery syrup — all from the estate's beans.

Lunch

A simple Shevaroy Hills lunch is served: millet rice, black-pepper rasam (using the estate's own pepper), coffee-leaf chutney (a local curiosity), and jackfruit chips. You leave with a bag of freshly roasted coffee beans.