Profile Overview
Ashwin Paranjpe is the founder of Gorus Farm, a modest coffee plantation located on the outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra. With a background in environmental science, he is dedicated to cultivating coffee in a non-invasive and environmentally sustainable manner. The farm is notable for its unique approach to the cultivation of shade-grown Arabica coffee in a relatively low-altitude setting.
Did you know there is a coffee farm 40 km from the outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra? Welcome to Gorus Farm, where biodiversity and coffee coexist, a place where nature takes the lead and humans step back to let it flourish. Here birds are the planters, and civets are the harvesters.
If you walk into Gorus farm, you will be welcomed with cherry tomatoes, onions, mustard plants, and a variety of flora and fauna. Spanning 10 acres, the farm has a dedicated acre untouched, serving as the home for cobras, leopards, hyenas, peacocks, porcupines, and even endangered pangolins.
At this point, one might even wonder whether we are talking about a forest or a coffee farm.
“Coffee is showing us the direction, but the larger entity that governs us is the forest,” says Ashwin Paranjpe, a visionary horticulturist and founder of Gorus Farm.
Ripe coffee cherry waiting to be plucked in Gorus Farm
Accidental Coffee Farm
Ashwin has been redefining the way communities connect with their food for more than a decade. Before being a coffee farm owner, he worked as an environmental systems teacher and led one of India’s first community-supported agriculture networks. This initiative connected organic farmers with consumers, providing organic produce to 200 families in Pune and fostering a closer relationship between consumers and farmers.
In 2008, Ashwin decided to establish a farm of his own with a clear vision. “I wanted to do something here that was in sync with the ecosystem that we inherited, instead of doing something that is out of place just because there is a market for it.”
With that goal in mind, he began experimenting with various crops, but the results were not what he hoped for.
In 2010, coffee made its way to the farm purely by accident. For a hundred years, a few Arabica coffee plants were growing in the backyard of the Paranjpe household. These plants found their way from Kenya to Pune in 1923, thanks to Ashwin’s great grandfather, Haribhau Paranjpye, who was a botanist working for the Bombay Presidency.
The agrarian economy in Mesopotamia (which includes parts of present-day Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait) had started to decline after the First World War. Haribhau was deputed to Mesopotamia on a mission to help rejuvenate the agrarian economy in that region. During the 18 months he spent in Mesopotamia, Haribhau collected seeds of several plants including the red and golden custard apple, and a few seeds of Arabica coffee.
On returning to India, Haribhau planted coffee seeds in the house he built on Bhandarkar Road in Pune. Years later, encouraged by his grandmother Vimala, Ashwin planted a few coffee seedlings at Gorus Farm in Nanegaon, Mulshi, Pune.
Starting with just 150 saplings in 2010, the farm now has more than 3,500 plants of coffee which were raised from seedlings that germinated after birds ate the coffee cherries and dropped the seeds on the forest floor.
India can expand the concept of small coffee plantations coupled with eco-tourism. This will provide livelihoods to small farmers and at the same time, save our forests.
- Ashwin Paranjpe
But how does coffee grow in Pune - a place with 620 meters of altitude, far below the ideal altitude for Arabica? Geography and ecology hold the key to this intriguing mystery.
While Arabica coffee typically requires elevations of 1,600–2,200 meters, Ashwin found the answer in an ancient connection.
“About 150 million years ago, the Indian plate broke away from the African plate and the northern Western Ghats, within which Gorus farm is located, were roughly aligned with the east coast of Ethiopia, which is considered to be the place of origin of Arabica coffee. This ancient link could at least partially explain why Arabica coffee flourishes in Gorus Farm against all odds,” Ashwin explained.
Even now, this connection is evident. The Albizia tree, a common shade tree in Ethiopian coffee plantations, grows naturally on Gorus Farm, symbolising its enduring bond with Africa’s coffee heritage.
“The secret to successful coffee cultivation at relatively low altitudes with very warm temperatures and extremely low humidity is the forest: coffee loves growing under the shade of diverse tree species in our humus-rich forest soil," says Ashwin.
An in-house coffee roaster made by Gorus Farm with utensils and scraps
For Ashwin, coffee is more than a crop - it is a way to reverse climate change
A Symphony of Nature and Farm
Ashwin’s vision has never been about rushing the coffee to the market. Instead, the farm operates differently.
“Our mission is to nurture the forest first, and then, whatever thrives in this ecosystem, can be sold to sustain the farm,” he says.
Nature quickly took charge, with the birds becoming the farm’s true custodians. They populated the entire forest with coffee seeds. After feasting on the coffee cherries, the birds disperse the seeds through their digestive systems, scattering them across the forest floor. With the arrival of the monsoon, these seeds would germinate.
In the first couple of years, this natural process yielded about 500 seedlings, all propagated by birds. Over the next seven to eight years, Gorus Farm continued to flourish, reaching its current count of 3,500 coffee bushes—every single one germinated by the birds.
Apart from coffee, Gorus Farm also has organically grown produce such as chilli peppers, cherry tomatoes, ginger, turmeric, black pepper, and a variety of fruits that are mostly consumed on the farm or offered to the farmstay guests.
In 2024, an unexpected event brought excitement to Gorus Farm—there was a remarkable increase in civet activity. These small mammals belonging to the cat family are known for eating coffee cherries. The coffee cherries eaten by the civets undergo natural fermentation during the digestion process and the resulting coffee is called Kopi Luwak.
The secret to successful coffee cultivation at relatively low altitudes with very warm temperatures and extremely low humidity is the forest.
- Ashwin Paranjpe
“For me, the fact that civets have started eating our coffee cherries is a relief, not because civet coffee is highly valued in international markets, but because it shows that growing coffee in this forest has not taken anything away from the wildlife; it has added another fruit to the food web,” Ashwin explains, as his focus remains on minimising disturbance to nature.
The guiding philosophy at Gorus is clear: “About 50% of the produce should notionally be available for wildlife, and the rest is for humans.”
But how does Gorus sustain itself with this low-yielding Arabica landrace that is grown without any chemical inputs?
“We don’t need to force the system. We don’t need to put pressure on natural resources or coffee plants to increase our profit. We are happy with what we are getting from this plantation: what this coffee landrace lacks in yield, it compensates in quality, which is being appreciated by several experts in the coffee industry,” Ashwin says.
Coffee saplings in the nursery of Gorus Farm
Opportunity For Everyone
If you are wondering how the coffee tastes, Gorus Farm offers a unique farm stay where visitors can sip on freshly brewed coffee, explore the forest, and see firsthand what sustainable farming looks like.
About 90% of coffee growers in India are small-scale growers. This, Ashwin feels, presents an incredible opportunity.
“India can expand the concept of small coffee plantations coupled with eco-tourism. This will provide livelihoods to small farmers and at the same time, save our forests” he adds.
Ashwin firmly believes in India’s potential to produce exceptional coffee.
“As the chemical intensive systems of coffee production in countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Vietnam face several challenges due to the narrow genetic diversity of high-yielding coffee varieties that are experiencing increased susceptibility to diseases due to ecological degradation and climate change," he said.
"I think we have a golden opportunity to produce clean coffee with eco-friendly practices that meet the highest quality standards while conserving the fragile ecosystems that support coffee cultivation.”
The story of Gorus Farm inspires small coffee planters across India to embrace sustainable and innovative practices. The story of coffee here goes beyond cultivation; it emphasizes coexistence, harmony, and honouring the forest that makes all of this possible.
