Since Coorg is the biggest grower of coffee in India, I zeroed in on the subject of coffee. During my youth in Coorg, I was fascinated by the legend of Mr Ivor Bull, a pioneer planter and the founder of the Consolidated Coffee Estates Ltd., Pollibetta. Though Mr Bull had returned to England in 1954, he had become part of the local ‘coffee folklore’ and was remembered with affection by the local planters. Rightly so, because it was Mr Bull who had encouraged the Coorg planters to grow oranges, cardamom and pepper along with coffee. The inter-planting vastly improved the economic condition of the small planters. I did not want to focus my writing on the cultivation of coffee because coffee has been grown in India as a commercial crop for nearly two centuries and planters are familiar with it. In this book, I have tried to give the reader, the coffee grower and the coffee lover in particular, an insight into the romance of coffee – it’s fascinating history, many charming facets of coffee culture, its symbiosis with nature and what makes it such a captivating brew. This book was produced with ePustaka - Ink and Weave initiative by Techfiz Inc (hIps://techfiz.com).

This book details the movement against India's Emergency based on newly uncovered archival evidence and oral histories.

Based on oral history, fiction, fascinating intellectual gossip, and records of the Coffee Board of India, this study is a multi-sited ethnography of the Indian Coffee House, possibly the world’s first coffee house chain. It offers a critical analysis of adda (informal meetings) of the educated middle class in Allahabad, Calcutta and Delhi. The coffee house became the new socio-intellectual nerve centre, replacing the neigbourhood tea shops, and creating an entirely different social space. This book will have line drawings and cartoons as well as archival photographs.

The Palaces of Memories is a journey into India through the Indian Coffee Houses, a national network of worker-owned cafs which can be found in cities throughout the sub-continent. The Coffee Houses simultaneously speak of a Post-Independence optimism and a now-faded grandeur. Stuart Freedman has visited more than thirty of the most significant and beautiful Coffee Houses throughout India. Away from the stereotypes of poverty and exotica they have allowed him to enter an 'ordinary' India, an environment which echoes the greasy-spoon cafes of a long-forgotten London.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.