Our story

Good coffee should tell you where it's from.

We buy from hill estates we can name and roast every week. Then we print the farm, the altitude and the roast date on the bag, so you never have to guess.

No. 01 · How it started

It started with a stale bag

Hillnote began in 2019 in a rented shed in Bengaluru with a 5 kg roaster and a complaint. Most of the coffee we could buy in the city couldn't tell us when it was roasted or which farm grew it, and its flavour had faded long before it reached us.

So we went to the source. We drove to estates in Chikmagalur and Coorg, cupped dozens of lots, and bought the ones that made us stop talking. We roasted them in small batches, wrote the date on the bag in pen, and sold them to friends, then to friends of friends.

“If we can't tell you which hill it grew on, we don't sell it.”

Meera Kulkarni, co-founder

We've grown since, but the rules haven't changed. We roast every week, to the week's orders. Every single-origin bag names its estate, and we grind to order for whichever brewer you own.

the first roaster still sits by the door

Demo figures

partner estates
14
cities with a café
4
coffees on the menu
12
days from roaster to doorstep
3–5

No. 02 · How we source

From farm to your cup in three steps

  1. Farm

    We cup samples from each harvest and buy the lots we'd happily drink every day. We pay per lot, agreed before harvest.

  2. Roastery

    Green coffee rests in our Bengaluru roastery until its roast day. Each coffee has its own profile, adjusted batch by batch.

  3. Your cup

    We grind to order, seal the bag, and hand it to the courier within 48 hours of roasting.

No. 03 · How we roast

Small batches, every single week

We roast in 12 kg batches, Monday to Thursday, and only as much as the week's orders need. Light roasts get a short, gentle profile to keep their fruit. Darker roasts go slower so they turn chocolatey instead of burnt. Every bag leaves with its roast date printed on the front, and a "best from" day so you know when it will taste its best.

we taste every batch before it's bagged

No. 04 · Team

The people behind the bags

Fictional team for this demo

  • Meera Kulkarni

    Co-founder, head roaster

    Spends Monday mornings at the roaster and Monday afternoons arguing about it.

  • Arjun Pillai

    Co-founder, green coffee buyer

    Visits every partner estate at least once a harvest, and drives most of the way.

  • Tanvi Rao

    Cafés and training

    Teaches every new barista to dial in a pour-over before they touch the espresso machine.

Photo credits

Photos on this site come from Unsplash and are used under the Unsplash License. Thank you to:

  • Pour-over cone and gooseneck kettle (Home, Brew guides): photo on Unsplashphoto-1442512595331-e89e73853f31
  • French press on a wooden counter (Home, Brew guides): photo on Unsplashphoto-1519082274554-1ca37fb8abb7
  • Café counter with a brew bar (Home, Cafés): photo on Unsplashphoto-1453614512568-c4024d13c247
  • Freshly roasted coffee beans, close up (Product pages, gallery): photo on Unsplashphoto-1447933601403-0c6688de566e

Illustrations, bag art and maps are original to this template. A few interface icons are adapted from Lucide (ISC licence).

Taste the difference yourself

Start with your brewer. We'll handle the grind.

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