India's Specialty Coffee Wave – CoffeeTalk

Harmanpreet Singh, a coffee enthusiast from Jalandhar, India, opened Buland Café in Jalandhar during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The cafe has 40 outlets across the city and has become a favorite spot for the city’s youth, who come to relax or work over piping cups of coffee. The beans, roasted in various blends, are sourced from the famed coffee estates of Karnataka. Singh personally trained his staff on how to brew the perfect cuppa and take care of the coffee machine.

India has had a vibrant cafe culture for years, but it has been largely restricted to big cities where homegrown specialty and international coffee chains dominate the market. Post-Covid, several tier-two cities are also seeing a boom in demand for such spaces as people embrace practices like remote working and look for new places to meet their friends and families. Cafe owners say more Indians are now willing to pay more for coffee that’s roasted in smaller batches and customized as per their preferences.

Clients have become more knowledgeable about the roasts and are interested in the origins of their coffee, says Bharat Singhal, the founder of Billi Hu roasteries. In fact, more than 44% of the Indian population now drinks coffee, a 2023 report by CRISIL, a marketing analytical company, shows.

The growing demand for specialty coffee in small cities plays a big part, says Bhavi Patel, a coffee consultant and dairy technologist. Roastery owners say the growth is also evident in numbers. “Subscription based orders have surged by 50% in one year,” says Sharang Sharma, the founder of Bloom Coffee Roasters. Customers have moved from French presses to pour-over or espresso machines, adopting more sophisticated brewing methods.

India has a long coffee-drinking history, with the culture taking shape in the 1900s when Indian Coffee Houses emerged as a hangout spot for the intellectual and elite class. Housed in colonial-styled buildings, these cafes served English breakfasts with steaming hot coffee and offered a space to discuss politics and mobilize support during pivotal periods in history. A shift occurred in the 1990s when economic reforms opened India to the world, allowing entrepreneurs to open private coffee shops frequented by young peeps, who saw it as a hip experience.

The arrival of global giant Starbucks in India in 2012 spurred the rise of homegrown specialty coffee brands like Blue Tokai Roasters, Third Wave Coffee, and Subko Coffee. While big cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Bengaluru still dominate the scene, smaller cities are quickly catching up.

However, it’s not just changing palettes that’s driving consumption. “Often it’s social media,” says Bhavi Patel, “people want good coffee but they also want to be in a space that’s trendy and which they can post online.”

Nishant Sinha from Lucknow city is among those who understood the trend early on. His Roastery Coffee House offers trendy ambience, free wi-fi, and cosy seating options along with an array of coffee roasts. While the beans are sourced from coffee estates in the south, the food is distinctively north Indian.

Demand is growing, but smaller coffee shop owners tend to cut corners, opting for substandard machines, serving weaker coffee shots, or hiring inexperienced baristas. Running the business is not always profitable given the high price of coffee and the infrastructural costs involved in running such spaces. Neha Das and Nishant Ashish opened The Eden’s café in Ranchi in 2021, creating a safe and relaxed space for young students to get together in the city. Their hazelnut coffee and cold brews have become a favorite of many.

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