Coorg

Coorg — Kodagu, properly — is a district of ridges between 900 and 1,700 m on the Karnataka side of the Western Ghats, and it grows most of India's coffee. Nearly all of it is shade-grown: arabica and robusta planted under rosewood, jackfruit and silver oak, with pepper vines trained up the trunks, which is why the estates read as forest rather than as plantation.

Madikeri, the district town, is small and has one good reason to stop — the view from Raja's Seat at the end of the afternoon, when cloud fills the valleys below the escarpment. Talakaveri, an hour south-west on Brahmagiri, is the ritual source of the Kaveri and fills once a year on Tula Sankramana, when the spring rises on a fixed date in October.

When to go. October to March, dry and cool. The coffee harvest runs roughly November to January and is the most interesting time to walk an estate. September to November is when the falls at Abbey and Iruppu are actually running, but expect afternoon rain either side of that.