Planters' Raj or British Raj? : coffee capitalism and the imperial state in South India [article]

Siddharth Sridhar
2018
Cup of coffee "Which of us does not know the grateful fragrance of a cup of good Coffee, whether on the midnight railway journey in the melting heat of India, or before a skating expedition on a frosty morning in England?" 1 -Edmund C.P. Hull, Madras, "If, as it has been computed, there are now consumed annually a thousand million pounds of the precious bean, Coffee can no longer be said to hold an insignificant place among the stapes of the trade. On the contrary, its importance as such can
more » ... dly be over-estimated, when it is remembered to what vast multitudes of persons its cultivation, transportation, and preparation for use afford profitable means of support." 2 -Robert G. Hewitt, Jr., New York, "I never tire of writing about coffee. It seems to me an inexhaustible, monumental theme. I sometimes feel that it is a subject which may well occupy the space of a whole saga, if we may define a saga as a worthy theme expanded to a worthy length." 3 -R.K. Narayan, Story-Tellers World, In the 1940s, my great-grandfather, agent for a philanthropic estate in Mannargudi, woke up every morning at 4 a.m. to freshly roast coffee beans over a woodfire stove, grind them finely with a hand mill, and draw a thick black decoction, which he added to steamed cow's milk with the correct amount of sugar. While he enjoyed this
doi:10.15781/t2jm24033 fatcat:fr3jtaesqvddbjtc2odhm6x2sy