Indian Arabica Coffee comes to Finland

 

Balehonnur (Balanoor), Karnataka (Photo by KZ Kuriyan)

This news report appeared on Newsmeter.in.

Photo from the Newsmeter.in article

I have been for years been  telling our family  in India that the Finns would love the coffee we produce in our estates as in Badra Coffee Estates, in which I am a tiny shareholder.

Finns are the real  coffee connoisseurs in the world. 

They appreciate a good reaonably priced coffee. 

I recount an incident from 1992 when Annikki and I were visiting our daughteer, Susanna, who was studying in Exeter University in England.

As we walked down the High Street, Annikki smelt some coffee and was in the mood for a cup. There was s small kiosk on the walking street. We went in and asked the lady for the coffee which aroma Annikki had smelt.

After consuming it very slowly, she said that it was the most delicious cup of coffee that she had ever had. I told her that we could buy a kilo to take it to Finland.

I approached the lady and asked what was the price of the coffee. She told me that it was called Blue Mountain Coffee  and it came from Jamaica. 

The cost was  Blue Mountain Coffee was €100 per kilo. (Coffee in Finland at that time cost about €5 per kg.)

I was literally coffee-shocked and opted to buy 100 gm for Annikki. 

She drank it on special occasions for a year

On her 60th birthday in 2004 I found it in the Oulu Coffee shop in the Market Place and bought her 200 gms. 

Annikki drank it for the next 5 years on special occasions till her 75th birthday. 

(She now only drinks coffee very occasionally!)

I also recall sending a cousin of mine the tender papers for the Finnish Army as the soldiers would revolt if they did not get their four times a day quota of good coffee.

 I can imagine the Finnish soldiers stopping a war so that they could enjoy their brew! :-)

India in the Finnish news

Here in the near Arctic Finland, India, and especially Karnataka, appears to be much in the news.

There was an article in the Business Section of our local newspaper, Kaleva, the other day of an Oulu based company, INCAP, and its tie up with a facility in Tumkur, a town one hour north west of Bangalore. It is near enough to Bangalore to draw on the benefits of India's IT explosion, and yet far enough to get the benefit of lower costs than the exploding Bangalore.

(Bangalore is not just an IT centre, as it has developed during the last decade, as it has been long established as a major heavy, medium and light engineering centre in India.)

There was an almost full page section about Karnataka in another issue of the Business Section of the Kaleva. Much of the old stereotyping of Indian cities continues, and it was difficult for the writers, who had no idea of the past, to accept that there is continued great growth going on along with the the continuing poverty.

The figures about poverty levels indicated are nowhere near the claims of the Indian Government, but as it is still visible means that I do not give equal credence to the Indian Government hype, either.

Karnataka is no longer the same as when I grew up 60+ years ago. In my time, I have seen a beautiful garden city grow and be destroyed and made into a concrete jungle. I have also seen the level of corruption sky-rocketing that would make my grandfather turn in his grave. He had been the First Member (Prime Minister) to the Mysore Maharaja in the State of Mysore, pre-Independence. Mysore was reputed to have the cleanest and most forward looking and efficient Administration under the Maharajas.

My father, who was an engineer in the Mysore Electricity Board up until the early 1950s, migrated out of Mysore and moved to Bombay because of corruption at the highest political level in the State.

Similarly, one of the reasons that I quit Bangalore in the mid Eighties was because we could no longer live with the corruption in almost every walk of life in the State.

Another article that appeared a few weeks ago (2nd September 2007 - no online link available) about India was written by the Chief Editor of our local newspaper, Risto Uimonen.

He and I have not been on the same page for many years. I think he is arrogant, just as much he thinks the same about me!



The article on the whole is well written.

However, as can from the picture and the inset, he uses a term "neekerityttöjen" in the text, which is equivalent to using the derogatory "n----r girls" in the USA.

It shows a lack of diplomacy and language (his own) control by this individual.

Also, it shows his lack of understanding about the history and culture of India.

The Negritos, who are the broad-headed Negroids from Africa, were the oldest people to have come to India. These people are now only found in patches among the hill tribes of South India (Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans and Kurumbas). They survive in the Andaman Islands where they have retained their language. They are an inconsequential element in the population of India.

The use of the offensive language, totally without a basis for use, shows the crudity to which was stepped to and it reinforced my previous opinion of this individual.