It’s a tree, it’s a bird, it’s Black Baza coffee!

Should a coffee be named after a tree? Or a coffee company after a bird? Of course, that’s so apt. The best coffees come from within forests. In the shade of traditional trees, a collaborative effort by birds, bees, butterflies, fallen leaves and other life forms helps the coffee plant along, giving its berries the attributes that make them special. It is a slow process of ecological mingling nudged along by Nature in ways too wondrous to be easily understood.

So here we are in dusty Gurugram, drinking a coffee called Ficus from the Black Baza Coffee Company. Ficus is the lovely fig tree in the shade of which this coffee has been grown. The Black Baza is a medium-sized bird of prey that is known to swoop on insects and make a meal of them.