Industrial visits, today, play a very vital role in building a good professional career of a student. Since theoretical knowledge alone is not enough to make students career ready, therefore, to fill the learning gap, industrial visits have been made an essential part of the Curriculum in most of the Graduate Courses. Canara College considers it as its core responsibility to build a learning intervention that is intertwined with practical, hands-on skill enhancement knowledge to ensure that students’ learning is not focused solely on theoretical approaches. Hence, the Academic Class Mentors of Second B.Com. A, Mrs. Seema PrabhuS., and Mrs. Keerthana Bhat, chalked out a plan for an industrial visit to Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG) India Coffee, Hassan.
On June 26, 2023 at around 6:00 a.m. from Canara College a bus carrying 52 students set out on its memorable journey to Hassan. Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG) is a globally operating green coffee service group. With its unique cross-cultural network of more than 50 companies in 26 countries, a privately owned and run enterprise rooted in Hamburg, NKG, presently, is the most important green coffee exporter in India.
At NKG, the Unit Head explained the journey of the humble coffee bean from farm to home. The fruit of the coffee plant known as “cherry” grows in clusters and is deep ruby red when ripe. These beans are then harvested, often handpicked to ensure the best quality and flavour.
He further elaborated on how the coffee cherries undergo many layers of processing to extract the beans from the fruit. This involves drying, washing, fermenting, milling, sorting, and grading. Processing of the fruit can be done in different ways and has a prominent effect on the flavour of the resulting green beans. Once dried, the beans are removed by a process called “hulling”. NKG being the intermediate industry, the coffee beans received from the farmer, thus, undergo further processing. They are dried further to remove moisture, if any, lest it gets spoiled when packed. These green beans are then sorted using machinery into different varietals based on the quality, weight, size, and colour. Once the coffee beans are graded, a small amount of the green coffee beans is roasted in a mini roaster and prepared by a highly qualified “cupper”. Now, the beans are then hygienically packed locking in the freshness and quality, and ready for export to other countries where the roasting companies buy these beans to create their own house blends.
By the end of the industrial visit, the students were amazed by the interesting and long journey of the coffee bean from farm to home, ready to be brewed. In short, taking a day off from their usual classroom learning, 52 students got a chance to engage in fun learning.
Report By,
Mrs. Seema Prabhu S.and Mrs. M. Keerthana Bhat
