Kaati
Medium Dark
Meet the Coffee
Presenting Kaati - inspired by Gaurs. After Chukki (the Leopard) we planned on saving mammal species to represent a genre of coffees that are full-bodied and wholesome! This Washed Arabica was roasted medium-dark to achieve the same. What is more special about Kaati is that it’s the first coffee from our newest origin Palani Hills. The coffee comes from a new collective of producers and a new forest!
Flavour Notes: Cacao, Bittersweet Chocolate and Dried Figs.
Recommended Brewing: Pour Over, Moka Pot and French Press.
Meet the Grower
Black Baza’s exploration of the Palani Hills region has been brewing for the past two years. The region is a complex concoction of diverse communities and ways of living — forest-dwellers, wage workers, merchants, newer migrants to the hills, honey harvesters, botanists, small-scale farms as well as single individuals who are owners of entire hillsides swathed with coffee plants. What we found deeply inspiring is the determination with which Palani people want to peacefully share and safeguard this landscape.
Kariyamal, Rajathi, Ramprasanth, Subbi, Magudesan and their families are amongst a collective of producers of Kaati and with whom we activated our work in Palani Hills. Their incredible practices on 2-3 acres each, allow for Arabica coffee plants to be grown under almost entirely native tree species shade and with negligible or no fencing which allows wildlife to move in and out of their farms with little or no damage to either coffee or the animals themselves.
Name inspiration
The majestic Gaur, the world’s largest bovine inspired this new coffee. Gaurs are endangered residents of the Western Ghats. We’ve been lucky to spot them many times inside and in the jungle neighbourhoods of our partner producer’s coffee farms. Easy to identify in a forest - with a distinctive pair of convex horns, big enough ears that disguise them as interested listeners, an eminently ridged spine and legs many shades lighter than their big black-brown bodies.
Their behaviour is heavily influenced by human activity in their vicinage - originally diurnal, they behave nocturnal in landscapes disturbed by humans. Gaurs spend most of their time feeding, these herbivores display a high preference in food - have favourites in grass and leaves. They also chew on and consume tree bark to ensure balance in nutrition.
The Gaur has few predators excluding humans. Historically they had crocodiles. We say historically because the distribution of both Gaurs and saltwater crocs species don’t overlap anymore as a consequence of the decreasing ranges of both their habitats.
Gaurs’ long-term survival depends on the availability of their preferred plant species for food. So, the protection of biodiversity and lands that house these native chewies is crucial!
