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Black Baza Coffee
Black Baza Coffee
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Thousand
Year Brew
We envision a world where coffee is grown in collaboration with people and nature. The term ‘1000 Year Brew’ describes the philosophy that anchors the longer view in our grassroots action, scientific research and our business model. We operate from a belief that this longer view builds the ground for a grower-led vision for sustainability, one in which biodiversity, local ecosystems and peoples’ well-beings are at the heart.
A 1000 Year Brew also nurtures a more immersive coffee culture for coffee drinkers – a culture that incorporates a fuller notion of flavour.
We aim to use our business, voice, resources and community to fight for a more non-extractive, equitable and sustainable vision for coffee.
A 1000 Year Brew is critical because conventional coffee production has a shockingly poor track record. Coffee plantations have cleared vast tracts of forests in many of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, including in India’s Western Ghats. Intensive use of chemical fertilisers has leached the soil of naturally available nutrients and the use of toxic pesticides have wiped off hugely important creatures like bees and earthworms.
Some of the most vulnerable people in the coffee industry have not benefitted either. Trade has exploited smallholder producers and workers through less than fair market prices for produce and insufficient living wages. While global coffee companies have flourished, smallholder producers have only been further impoverished.
To make matters worse, climate is changing so rapidly that the future of coffee itself is threatened.
However, coffee is not all gloom and doom. We believe that there is huge potential to nurture coffee growing systems that are rooted in people, places and ecologies.
Our coffee is an attempt to do our small bit for the planet.
Learn more about our grassroots work below.
Our Initiatives
As you might have already guessed, we do a whole lot behind the scenes to ensure that each cup of coffee is ultimately kinder to the grower and environment. Much of our grassroots work is co-created with coffee growers and collaborators from various disciplinary worlds. We love building new creative partnerships, so do please reach out if our work resonates with your own.
Grower First Programme
The Grower First Programme is our flagship programme with coffee growing communities. Our practice stems from a belief system that places the experiences of coffee growers at the centre of all processes concerning production and trade. We focus on designing grower-centric farming processes, including aspects of sustainability and biodiversity conservation. We currently work with the most incredible communities of smallholder coffee growers who inspire us everyday to champion their coffees with their level of care and consciousness. Read more about our partner growers below.
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Black Baza Coffee
Black Baza Coffee
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From pondering to coffee procurement — navigating self-doubt, power and people’s desires in BRT
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Black Baza Coffee
Black Baza Coffee
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/11773c93b5e2dfc487bd9770b62f6f73?s=96&d=mm&r=g
From pondering to coffee procurement — navigating self-doubt, power and people’s desires in BRT
read more
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Black Baza Coffee
Black Baza Coffee
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You Caffeinate, We Conserve
Our founder, Arshiya Bose is a National Geographic Explorer and has been collaboratively working with the National Geographic Society on a participatory science research project in coffee landscapes in the Western Ghats.
Kaadina Makkalu
ಕಾಡಿನ ಮಕ್ಕಳು (Kaadina Makkalu), translated from Kannada to mean Children of the Forest, is an initiative of Black Baza Coffee’s outreach programme. In this channel, we champion the voices of indigenous communities and smallholder coffee growers. We document and share stories about the forest, peoples’ histories, our coffee farms and the biodiversity with which our coffee shares space. We redefine the format of conventional natural history documentary such that stories about nature and ecological knowledges are shared by indigenous peoples’ themselves rather than by those who take away these stories without due credit.
Grounds of Change
Have you every thought about your coffee’s origins? The hands and land that nurtured the beans?
Our most recent initiative, in collaboration with our friends at Quicksand Design Studio and the Bangalore Sustainability Forum, is an experiment in building empathy and connectedness between coffee growers and coffee drinkers.
Participatory Action Research
As a collective of researchers, we engage in numerous ongoing participatory action-research initiatives. Our research is largely led by community members and stakeholders and we seek to collectively inquire about the social and ecological world around us, understand, transform and reflect on it collaboratively. Our research areas include traditional ecological knowledge, collective norms and institutions for biodiversity-friendly farming, governance of farmer producer organisations and community media. We also study markets and in particular, spaces for meaningful engagement of smallholder farmers and the role of voluntary regulatory systems, such as certifications in shifting power structures and farming practices. Read more about our research here.
About Us
Black Baza Coffee Co. is an interdisciplinary specialty coffee roastery. We facilitate meaningful and empowered market experiences for smallholder coffee growers. Our grassroots work builds on traditional ecological knowledge and strengthens farming practices that conserve biodiversity and local ecosystems. Our philosophy imbibes the spirit of interconnectedness and we engage with coffee drinkers to explore empathetic and engaged relationships between producer and consumer and ultimately, a fuller notion of flavour.
Arshiya founded Black Baza Coffee in 2016 with the purpose of building a social and conservation enterprise that works with smallholder coffee producers in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot of India to stabilise and secure livelihoods as well as strengthen biodiversity on coffee farms. Her work over the past decades includes building farmer-friendly supply chains and sustainable sourcing strategies. Arshiya is passionate about impact-oriented research, participatory science and conservation, community media and design thinking. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge, UK and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from ETZ-Zurich. Arshiya is an Acumen Fellow, Kinship Conservation Fellow and a National Geographic Explorer. She takes her AeroPress everywhere!
Suri Venkatachalam was the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Connexios Life Sciences, a drug discovery and development company, until his transition in 2016. He holds a PhD in condensed matter physics, and has conducted post-doctoral research in computational neuroscience and ecology. Suri is an entrepreneur and a co-founder of Achira Labs, a Bengaluru based start-up working on molecular diagnostic applications. Suri is also an Adjunct Faculty at Nature Conservation Foundation, India, and an Advisor to the Snow Leopard Trust. He is deeply interested in environmental history and its intersection with world history. Suri serves on our Board of Directors.
Radha Rangarajan works on telling vital stories about the natural world, through photography, filmmaking and writing. She drives media, communications and community building at Black Baza. She was the Editor at Nature inFocus where she commissioned features on environmental issues and curated their annual photography competition and social media communication. She has also curated and edited stories for JLR Explore for over a decade. Radha has written and edited over 15 picture books for children (Pratham Books) and co-authored a book on Indian environmental heroes (Duckbill-Penguin).
Kavya heads our production unit, overseeing roasting, quality check and order dispatch. She brings her previous experience on the retail floor to run operations with a meticulous eye for detail.
Kethegowda has over two decades of experience carrying out ecological research on bees and honey, native tree species and birds. A coffee grower himself, Kethegowda believes in holistic farming practices that conserve local ecosystems and biodiversity. He is equally passionate about outreach and is a founder member of Kaadina Makkalu. He leads our conservation research.
Sannarangegowda has held various executive positions in local institutions, including the Soliga Abhivruddhi Sangha for over two decades. He is deeply committed to building livelihood security in his community and leads our producer engagement initiatives, including capacity building programmes. Sannarangegowda is also a founder member of Kaadina Makkalu.
Kalabati has a decade of experience in the design industry. Playing different roles – in every aspect of textile product development, leading design teams, production units, working with small and big brands to tell their story with creative insight and emotions. The focus of her work includes a holistic approach to branding. Development of compelling stories and aesthetic solutions without too many jargon in the conversation.