Coffee Santhe: Exploring Bengaluru’s annual coffee festival
The 5th year of Bengaluru’s annual Coffee Santhe brought with it participants from all over India and featured coffee brewed from 13 different regions.
Stalls heavily populated the event with coffee-affiliate products ranging from art made from coffee to coffee-based soaps and shampoos.
Hosted by the Women’s Coffee Alliance of India, an organization dedicated to sustain the active participation of women in the coffee farming industry, the festival went on for three days — 11 to 13th of January. The festival took place at Orion Mall, Rajajinagar where entry was free and open to all. The Coffee Santhe consisted of a wide and diverse array of 60 stalls (fronted mostly by women) and a stage where cultural performances and competitions took place.
“It was because of Dr. Sunalini Menon; I got introduced to her through an another event, and she just asked me to come over for a cup of coffee,” said Nityashree N., owner of Nesar, a company that sells handmade soaps.
Dr. Sunalini Menon is the resident coffee expert on the WCA-I’s Board of Trustees.
“She seeded in the idea of ‘why don’t you do a coffee shampoo, or a coffee soap?”
Currently, Nesar boasts an extensive collection of handmade soaps, body lotions, creams, lip balms, shampoos, and even herbal tea.
The Coffee Santhe set out to do more than just celebrate coffee; there was a stall for the International Coffee Organization where an announcement was being made.
“It’s [the 5th annual World Coffee Conference] happening for the first time in India, and it’s coming to namma Bengaluru,” saidShaam, frontrunner of the stall. “It’s going to be one of India’s biggest coffee events. We’ll have workshops, meetings, and there’s even a golf tournament for those who come looking to sponsor.”
Written over a rainbow motif, the flyer being handed out at the stall read ‘Sustainability through consumption’.
Vidyashree, 27 and currently working in IT, detailed how she came across the event and eventually decided on going.
“I saw it in the newspaper one morning and knew I had to go. Things like this don’t happen often enough in our city,” she said.
Titling herself as a ‘coffee enthusiast’, she went on to describe the event itself, carrying a large bag full of coffee-related goodies acquired at the event.
“It has been managed very well and been a very pleasant experience overall. I never expected to see clothing with coffee beans as buttons.”
The IWCA was formed in 2003, and their website states their primary objective as one that is to ‘empower women in the international coffee community to achieve meaningful and sustainable lives and to encourage and recognize the participation of women in all aspects of the coffee industry.’
WCA-I (Women’s Coffee Association-India) was started in July of 2012 and has since then taken up a number of various different initiatives such as ‘Nanhi Kali — the education of girl children in the tribal belt of the coffee growing area in the Araku Valley’ and ‘Aa Haar — [a] nutritive supplement programme’ to name just a few.
