【Rising Star】Danish Ali: Caffeine Nirvana

Hello, everyone, my name is Danish. I’m from Caffeine Nirvana, India. I’m from a town called Chikmagalur.

This is our estate. We grow all coffee and a lot of shade trees. This is Chikmagalur.

I’ll just give you a context. Is is here that Baba Budan, when green bean, it was banned to take it anywhere and he smuggled seven beans inside a stick and brought it to Chikmagalur.

And form those seven beans in the 16th century is where the coffee started. My family has been in it for a very long time. We are continuing it by employig the latest advancements, what’s available to us and combining it with the age-old traditions.

There are a lot of locations, producers, farms, all shade grown on Chikmagalur. I plan to bring them forward to share it with everyone.

This is our estate. And this is the first layer of shade trees, what we have. It’s all wild fig fruits.

Our vision has to be sustainable across everything, whatever we do across all activities. For us, it’s a very volatile and uncertain world that we live in at this time. Due to climate change, it is uncertain that if we can continue any further. By not just adopting all the traditional practices, what is related to sustainability like planting trees and etc., but also in increasing the value and the quality of coffee so that economic success. I feel it’s equal to sustainability as well.

It is sustainability etched into every single thing. And the next thing is inclusion of all the growers in our region. To share what we have learned. It may be regarding the growing practices, the processes to increase the cup quality and everything. And it’s bringing Chikmagalur across.

And the next thing is definitely by rooting ourselves in spirituality. In all our actions and our dealings, I feel we can connect with every living organism that is in touch with us. We make it our way of life.

Being in nature, and living off of it has taught me one thing, that we cannot go against nature. We always have to go along with it, achieve a harmony, a balance and going with the flow is our only way. The Taoist way of being in the center, the perfect way.

This is how we are going to achieve our vision. It’s by employing the latest science and technology whatever is available to us. Be it soil health, micronutrient management, plant management, and also the different processing, whatever is been in the coffee industry.

And the next thing is not only to increase the productivity, but total focus on quality, and sharing with the grower community as well.

In today’s sustainable world, it’s not just remaining proactive with nature, but also including the economic viability. By doing that, it not only increases the quality and standard of life of our workforce and everyone who’s living with us. And also increasing the ultimate cup quality as opposed to productivity that has been going on all these decades, that is the focus just on productivity.

And spirituality in every way, in how we live and how we do business. It helps us live and achieve a higher state of consciousness. It’s the small things that lead to improving the whole energy in our region and bless for every living organism.

These are the trees.

What I’ve learned from all this is that every human being strives for happiness. And by adopting sustainability and spirituality through our everyday actions, big or small, we ultimately increase the happiness of not just the people around us, but every living organism connected with us, be the plants, the whole ecosystem, the climate, everything. There will be happiness throughout. And better quality of life is the ultimate result of that.

And next thing is there is total uncertainty. Due to climate change, there is no guarantee that there will be coffee grown in the next 15 or 20 years. I feel that mitigating the climate change by adopting scientific methods and also increasing the cup quality is the only solution.

Most of our crop in India was commercial and it was holding a large quantity. But right now, the only focus is on increasing the quality of it. Total emphasis on quality.

My message to the community. I’m very grateful to be here on stage, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so. I’m very happy to see the transparency and the traceability everywhere, that is given by the roasters, to the producers. And the quality of coffee that I have all these days is really amazing.

And I will thank also the intermediaries that everyone who’s involved in coffee. This is a very beautiful lifestyle that’s happening around here. I feel that TYPICA is one of the most passionate, humanitarian, and open minded organization, with very high values that I have seen all these years. And I think organizations are this, that are the next state of consciousness itself.

As I told you today, we are more than a community. We are a family. And I thank TYPICA for everything. I feel you are a revolution in this coffee and you’re going to do great things ahead. Wishing loads of success to TYPICA teams and its future. Thank you.

【Q&A】

Q: Thank you for the beautiful presentation. I noticed you seem very keen on spirituality. Did you start thinking that way after you started the coffee business? Or is it a principle you’ve always had?

A: From the beginning, I don’t think it was this. But just getting into coffee and facing all the challenges and trying to produce the best quality coffee, it has definitely taught me many things.

And the most important is being in nature, you have to be spiritual. There is no other way. You have to go along with the flow and be in complete harmony, or else I feel that it is very difficult to survive further. I think spirituality is the way forward.