BENGALURU: A cuppa is always welcome, especially in the monsoon. More so if the beans are sourced from farms growing them chemical-free as a city-based ‘social enterprise’ does.
Ashriya Bose, founder of BlackBaza Coffee, supplies beans grown following bio-diversity-friendly practices. She ensures the coffee plantations have 100 trees of 20 species an acre.
The coffee is grown without chemicals so as not to affect animals that wander into the farms.
She stumbled upon the idea during her research with farmers for her PhD with University of Cambridge’s Geography Department. It started in 2009 and went on till 2015.
“I was studying coffee production in India, and social and environmental problems faced by the plantations,” she says. “We realised that to up the yield, coffee is grown without shade, unlike the way it was traditionally.”
India produces 4.5 per cent of the world’s coffee, and the consumption of this beverage is gradually increasing in what is largely a tea-drinking nation, she adds.
The company was founded in 2015 as a conservation project to improve bio-diversity in coffee farms in India.
“We visited 300 farms in Kodagu and BR Hills. We spent time documenting shade trees, coffee yields, value chains and understanding the challenges of farming sustainably,” she says.
Then, she found that most of the farmers are growing crops under direct sunlight.
“Shade is important – it protects the plants during the long, dry seasons. It also controls the microclimate,” she explains. “Moreover, the leaves from the trees become natural manure for the coffee plants.”
Through BlackBaza Coffee, she has been able to provide good market access and the support required to sustain these practices in 35 farms.
“Thirty one are small, covering about half an acre, and the others are between 50 and 100 acres,” explains the accidental entrepreneur. She was preparing to become an academic before she realised the need for a company like hers.
Farmers who wish to hop on the bandwagon need to plant 100 trees for every acre of plantation, and stay away from chemical pesticides.
The response to the product has been encouraging – people from different states, including Meghalaya and Odisha, are approaching her to provide them with better market access, she says.
“We provide a post card with every pack. It will have addresses of the farms where the coffee is fetched from. Many customers write back to that address saying how they liked the coffee,” she adds.
At the suggestion of a customer, BlackBaza Coffee started using biodegradable alternatives for packaging the coffee powder. “Even some of the names. The Whistling Schoolboy and Wanderoo – were also suggested by customers,” she offers. “They are named after a bird native to the Western Ghats and an endangered Lion-tailed Macaque respectively.”
The company offers coffee in six different blends, best consumed within three weeks after purchase to preserve the original flavour, recommends Ashriya.
“We make sure the coffee is delivered in three days of roasting,” she says.
As a start-up, she faces challenges in finding space for her brand in a market controlled by long-standing, bigger players.
BlackBaza Coffee sells 250 gm of coffee between Rs 250 and Rs 350, depending on the blend.