Tucked away in a secret location in Thailand is an elephant sanctuary that is also home to Black Ivory Coffee, the most expensive coffee in the world. At US$2,200 per kilo, Black Ivory Coffee is the platinum standard of luxury coffee with the company’s production location being a key indication of its exclusivity. That is, it is the only coffee in the world to be naturally refined by pachyderms.
Founder, Blake Dinkin, was looking for a more conscious way of producing his coffee when he discovered that elephants naturally snacked on them. “Elephants are attracted to the sweet coffee cherries,” he explains. “They love them! I mix the cherries with bananas, tamarind and rice bran to help their caregivers supplement their elephants’ nutritional levels and to help fatten them up. These are food items that elephant caregivers cannot typically afford and we are happy to step in to support our elephant community. I want the elephants to enjoy and benefit from the process.”
“It took me 10 years to figure out the process and there’s a reason why I remain the only person in the world making this coffee,” says Dinkin. “It is an extremely arduous process. Everything is painstakingly thought out and executed by hand, from which beans to use to which foods to give, cleaning and sorting the coffee, and so on.”
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Dinkin eschews the practices of certain scandal-plagued kopi luwak (civet coffee) companies and stresses that none of his elephants are coerced in the making of his coffee. “We never force-feed our elephants,” he says. “In fact, that’s pretty hard to do to a 4,000 kg animal that is able to crush the average human male like a fly. If they don’t like what they are eating, they spit it out on your face or just don’t allow you to put it in their mouths!”
The coffee company has been steadfast in its stance on supporting the elephants and their caregivers. “I make it a point not to work with baby elephants or elephants that are ill,” says Dinkin, “I am also mindful of their caregivers. We have become a valuable source of income for the community that we work with and they are especially in need, having been severely affected by the pandemic.”
“We are transparent in our higher-than-average fees to the caregivers (up to US$30 for less than an hour’s work per elephant) We also help fund students of the local high school who need the money for university and supporting their families in exchange for a bit of their free time to help sort and wash the coffee.”
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Black Ivory Coffee’s best practices, conversely, result in a limited yield (215 kg in 2021) which account for it being the rarest coffee and by consequence, the most expensive, in the world. “It takes 33 kg of coffee from the coffee tree to make one kilo of Black Ivory Coffee,” says Dinkin. “A lot of elephants tend to break the beans while chewing their snacks and broken beans can’t be used. Also, our elephants are free to walk in the grass or have a swim—they are not restricted. I tend to lose the coffee when the elephant goes to the bathroom without us knowing or when having a soak in the river.”
The weighty price tag placed on Black Ivory Coffee makes it the most expensive coffee by far – the Guatemalan Finca El Injerto comes in second at approximately US$1,200 per kilo. This desirability and hence, its price per cup, is also indicative of taste and the coffee is at once distinctive, possessing an exceptional aroma and flavour with notes of chocolate, malt, spice, even a hint of grass. “There is nothing in the world quite like it,” says Dinkin. “Its uniqueness is something both connoisseurs and novices can immediately discern and as partial as it sounds, I do think it’s the most exquisite coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
