There are probably few issues in Indian plantations today that are as complex, conflicted and polarised as elephants in coffee landscapes. So we tread carefully around what we know, and what we don't know, about growing coffee alongside elephants.
Elephants have fascinated us from the very beginning of our work in coffee. We have been particularly interested in understanding where encounters with elephants are manageable, and where they become risky for both people and elephants. Most of the time, these situations are understandably distressing, and the space and time for slow, careful research of this kind has rarely existed.
Across the landscapes where our partner producers grow coffee, experiences with elephants vary enormously. But one thing remains constant: elephants are regular visitors.
They move through farms in the early mornings, evenings and the middle of the night. And when the paths of elephants and people do not cross, these encounters have often been manageable.
For the past four years, we have been camera trapping in coffee farms, albeit in only one of the landscapes where we work. During this time, we have documented fascinating and important elephant behaviour and movement through coffee. Our hope is that, through collaboration with scientists and people who understand elephants far better than we do, we can continue supporting partner producers to cultivate coffee in areas that elephants also use.
This is a mad mixture of technical and adaptive moving parts, whether one is trying to "manage" elephants or people.
It requires patience, paying attention, keeping our ears to the ground, and constantly learning. We need to keep our eyes and ears to the ground while supporting producers with both practical tools and the flexibility needed to continue farming in these shared landscapes.
When we began thinking about our 2026 Microlots, we realised that after a decade of working in coffee, we could no longer overlook this complexity.
Even if elephants in coffee remain a difficult subject, we felt it was time to acknowledge it openly and begin exploring how we, as a coffee company, can be most useful to our partner producers.
Before making claims or rushing into interventions, we wanted to take the time to understand where, why and how we can genuinely contribute.
Looping back to our long-standing fascination with elephants, we wanted to share some of what we are learning about this deeply intelligent species. One of the things we're increasingly interested in is understanding elephants through what they might be saying – to each other, to us, and to the landscapes they move through.
So with each of our Microlots, we will chronicle what we've learnt – small jottings about what elephant thinking might look like.
Ten Microlots and ten little windows into elephant behaviour and communication.
If you're still reading this, thank you for joining us. We suspect we're only at the beginning of understanding what elephants are trying to tell us.
