Free shipping across India on orders above ₹1,499

Est. 2016 · Kotagiri

A mill that stopped turning in 1974, and started again in 2016.

We bought a derelict water mill on the Kannerimukku road because the building was cheap and the water was clean. Everything since has followed from those two facts.

The restored mill building at Kotagiri, seen from the stream

The mill from the stream side. The wheel has not turned since 1974 and we have left it that way.

The building

01

The building

The mill ground ragi and wheat for the villages around Kotagiri from 1918 until the road came through and the flour got cheaper elsewhere. It sat empty for forty-two years. When we found it the roof was gone over the eastern half and a jackfruit tree was growing through the grinding room, but the granite floor was intact and the stream still ran clean enough to test at drinking standard.

We kept the wheel. It does not power anything. It seemed dishonest to remove it and equally dishonest to pretend it was working.

Why three things

02

Why three things

We did not set out to sell ghee. We set out to sell tea, because we were in the Nilgiris and tea was in front of us. Coffee followed within a year because the Western Ghats grow it and nobody local was roasting it properly for home use.

Ghee arrived because of a complaint. A customer in Bengaluru wrote to say our tea was the only thing in her kitchen she trusted, and asked, quite bluntly, why nobody would sell her ghee she could believe in. It took us two years to answer her properly. She was our first ghee subscriber and she still orders every 45 days.

What we got wrong

03

What we got wrong

Our first two ghee batches were poor. We cooked them too hot because we were impatient, and they came out flat and slightly burnt. We sold none of them and it hurt.

Our first Darjeeling purchase was worse — we bought on reputation rather than cupping the sample, and paid a great deal for a chest of thoroughly ordinary tea. Now we cup everything blind, three people, written notes before discussion. We learned that one the expensive way.

The arithmetic we refuse to fix

04

The arithmetic we refuse to fix

We could make more margin tomorrow. Move to cream separation and the milk cost per litre drops by roughly half. Buy CTC dust instead of orthodox leaf and the tea cost drops by two-thirds. Switch amber glass for PET and save nine rupees a jar. Test quarterly instead of per batch and save a genuinely significant sum.

We have modelled all four. We are not doing any of them. Not out of romance — out of the simple fact that if we did, we would no longer be able to write any of the sentences on this website.

Eighteen hours, start to jar

The long way round, hour by hour.

This is the whole process. There is no step we have left out to make it sound better than it is.

  1. 01

    5:30 p.m.

    The milk arrives

    Raw full-fat milk from indigenous A2 herds reaches the mill within four hours of milking, still warm. It is filtered through cloth and nothing is added to it.

    4 hrsMilking to mill

  2. 02

    8:00 p.m.

    Set into curd

    A spoon of the previous day’s culture goes in, and the milk is left overnight in clay to set. Clay breathes and holds temperature. Steel does neither.

    12 hrsOvernight set

  3. 03

    4:00 a.m.

    Churned by hand

    The curd is churned in a wooden bilona, back and forth, until the makhan separates and rises to the top. Done before dawn, while the air is still cold enough to keep the butter firm.

    90 minHand churn

  4. 04

    6:30 a.m.

    Slow wood fire

    The butter is simmered over wood for close to four hours. Never a rolling boil. The milk solids sink, caramelise, and give the ghee its colour and its smell.

    ~4 hrsLow simmer

  5. 05

    11:00 a.m.

    Rested and settled

    Off the heat, undisturbed. In the winter danedar batches this stage runs eighteen hours, which is what forms the grain.

    18 hrsDanedar rest

  6. 06

    Next morning

    Filled, sealed, tested

    Hand-filled into amber glass, batch-coded, and a sample from every batch goes to an NABL-accredited lab. The report is published against the batch number.

    100%Batches tested

The short list

Eight things we will not do.

Every one of these would make us more money. We have modelled all of them. This is the list we keep on the wall of the packing hall.

  • Cream separation instead of curd churning
  • CTC dust in anything, including the chai blend
  • Flavour essence, anti-caking agent or added colour
  • Palm fat, vanaspati or blended vegetable oil — in any quantity
  • Best-before dates on coffee in place of roast dates
  • Quarterly lab testing dressed up as batch testing
  • "Farm fresh" and "100% pure" as substitutes for numbers
  • Buying spot-market when a partner family has a crop to sell

Twenty-two people, six of them here

Who actually makes it.

No stock photography, no founder mythology. These are the people whose decisions you taste.

Suresh Kariappa, Mill Manager

Suresh Kariappa

Mill ManagerSince 2016

Runs the churn floor and the fire. Has rejected more of our own batches than anyone.

Devika Raman, Head of Sourcing

Devika Raman

Head of SourcingSince 2017

Cups every lot blind. Lost us one Darjeeling chest and saved us eleven since.

Nandini Gowda, Churn Floor Lead

Nandini Gowda

Churn Floor LeadSince 2016

Nine years of 4 a.m. starts. Can tell a batch is off by the sound of the bilona.

Dr. Ipsita Nair, Consulting Nutritionist

Dr. Ipsita Nair

Consulting NutritionistSince 2021

Reviews every health claim we make and deletes most of them.

Ashfaq Rahman, Head Roaster

Ashfaq Rahman

Head RoasterSince 2019

Twelve-kilo drums, three to five batches a day, one rejection in twenty.

Vasanthi Krishnan, Packing Hall

Vasanthi Krishnan

Packing HallSince 2016

Writes most of the note cards. Her handwriting is the one you have seen.

Where it actually comes from

Nine places, named.

Every jar and every tin carries a batch code that resolves to one of these. Not a region — a specific herd, estate or slope.

Open the full map

Boundaries are indicative and simplified for the web. The nine points are real coordinates — choose one and the map flies to it.

The Old Mill

Kotagiri, The Nilgiris

Churn floor, roastery, stone wheel and packing hall. Est. 2016.

11.420°N, 76.860°E

Verified buyers

4.9

3k+ reviews

  • 5★2731
  • 4★341
  • 3★78
  • 2★21
  • 1★13

Every review below is from an order we shipped. We do not edit them, and we do not remove the unflattering ones.

Shop what they bought
I grew up watching my grandmother churn ghee in Rajkot and I had given up on finding anything close. The first jar arrived and the smell in my kitchen took me straight back. My mother, who is impossible to please, asked me to order two more.
Verified

Meera Bhatt

Bengaluru · Ordered 14 times

Gir Cow A2 Bilona Ghee
I run a small café and I have been through eleven filter coffee suppliers. This is the first one where the decoction is consistent bag after bag. The roast date on the tin is not a marketing gesture — you can taste the difference between week two and week seven.
Verified

Arun Selvaraj

Chennai · Wholesale customer

Filter Coffee 80:20
The Darjeeling is genuinely rare. I have bought second flush from three well-known houses this year and none of them had this much muscatel left in the cup. I made the mistake of adding milk once. Never again.
Verified

Kabir Rao

Mumbai · Ordered 6 times

Second Flush Darjeeling Muscatel
My father has ulcerative colitis and has been told to avoid most fats. His gastroenterologist cleared a small amount of A2 ghee and this is the one he tolerates. I am not making a medical claim — I am saying it has been six months and it works for him.
Verified

Dr. Shalini Iyer

Hyderabad · Subscriber

Sahiwal A2 Bilona Ghee
The masala chai ruined every other chai for me, which is annoying and expensive. It smells like almost nothing in the tin and then completely takes over the house when it hits the water. The salt tip in the leaflet is real.
Verified

Nikhil Menon

Pune · Subscriber

Stone-Ground Masala Chai
Sent eighteen brass hampers for my sister’s wedding. They engraved every one correctly, packed them beautifully, and three of my cousins have since ordered refills. The tins are still on their counters a year later.
Verified

Ritika Agarwal

Delhi · Corporate & wedding

Brass Tin Wedding Hamper
What convinced me was the lab report. I looked up my batch number expecting a generic PDF and got an actual NABL report with my batch on it. That is the first time an Indian food brand has done that for me.
Verified

Farhan Qureshi

Kolkata · Ordered 9 times

The monsooned Malabar is the only coffee I can drink black without my stomach complaining. I have been buying 500 g every six weeks for over a year. Delivery to Guwahati has never once been late.
Verified

Priyam Baruah

Guwahati · Subscriber

Coorg Monsooned Malabar
I bought the sampler because I refused to spend ₹2,690 on ghee I had not tasted. Smart of them — I have spent considerably more than that since. The tasting card is genuinely useful, not filler.
Verified

Ananya Desai

Ahmedabad · Ordered 5 times

The Mill Sampler
Visitors at the churn floor on a Saturday morning

First and third Saturday · twelve people

Come and see it

We run mill visits on the first and third Saturday of every month, capped at twelve people. You will see the churn floor, the fire, the roastery and the stone wheel. You will be given a cup of something and put to work at the bilona for ten minutes. You go home with whatever came off the fire that morning.

It is free. It always has been. Write to us and we will put you on the list.

Where
The Old Mill, Kannerimukku Road, Kotagiri, The Nilgiris 643217
Ask for a slot
hello@theoldmillgoods.com
Ask for a visitSee the batch reports