What is coffee's origin story? When and how did coffee reach India? When did plantations come into being? How did the beverage take root in the culture? How did it become so popular? Cherry Red, Cherry Black tells an enjoyably informative story of coffee in India starting at the very beginning and working its way to the present. With a storyteller's flair Kavery Nambisan sets the scene with the history of the origins of coffee, its serendipitous entry into India, early planting by village communities of the Mysore and Malabar provinces and the foray of British who scented commercial gains and began large scale plantations. In 1922, the plantations amalgamated into the Consolidated Coffee Estates. In 1990, it was acquired by the Tata Group to become Tata Coffee, the only corporate venture that deals with coffee from cultivation to processing, curing, packaging, sales and retail. Cherry Red, Cherry Black features profiles of major players in the field including some on experts who work as coffee tasters, while also the listing the varied and delectable ways of making and drinking coffee.