5 Made in India coffee brands innovating and revolutionising the market
SMBStory brings to you five Indian coffee brands moving away from the traditional methods of making coffee and coming up with new innovation in the segment.
A good cup of coffee can set your whole day. The rich aromas of a good brew wakes you up even before you have taken a sip.
And these days, there is no shortage of a good brew. Indian coffee makers are stepping up the game, innovating, changing, experimenting, and perfecting the beverage for their customers.
We list some made in India coffee brands that are leading this change:
Roastery Coffee
Nishant Sinha, Founder of Roastery Coffee
In 2017, Nishant Sinha opened Roastery Coffee House in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills, with an initial investment of Rs 30 lakh. Soon after, he opened another cafe in Kolkata and started supplying coffee beans to several places in and around Hyderabad, and even other places including Ahmedabad.
All coffee beans for Roastery Coffee House come from several coffee estates in India, specifically the ones in Chikmagalur. The coffee beans are then roasted in-house using a Giesen coffee roasting machine which has been imported from Germany.
Roastery Coffee’s USP lies in its special category containing Cascara coffees.
Cascara is the husk or dried skin of coffee cherries. These pulped skins are collected after the seeds have been removed from the cherries. They are then washed and dried in the sun for six days, cleaned, and then bagged. They are then shipped after resting for approximately two weeks.
The venture clocks sales worth approximately Rs 80 lakh every month and the company closed a turnover of Rs 8 crore in FY20.
Beanly
Samayesh Khanna and Rahul Jain, Co-founders, Beanly
Founded in 2018 by two friends — Rahul Jain and Samayesh Khanna —Delhi-based Beanly aims to provide fresh coffee beans to its customers.
The two were very passionate about coffee and had significant interest in the coffee-making business.
“We saw a big gap in the coffee products that were available in the market,” Rahul says, adding, “Most of them were usually either not fresh or just not up to the mark. As coffee lovers, that was a problem, and we set out to solve it (but only for ourselves).”
Beanly has a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) business model. It sells through Amazon and its own website. Currently, it is present in Bengaluru, Gurugram, and Delhi, and operations are underway to launch it in Mumbai and Kolkata.
Though the founders didn’t reveal the turnover, they added that the company sells 30,000 to 50,000 coffee packs a month.
Bizibean
Aharnish, Raj Singh, and Manideep Chhokra. Bizibean Co-Founders
Started in 2014 by coffee fanatics Aharnish, Raj Singh, and Manideep Chhokra, is essentially a chain of coffee joints where one can drink coffee brewed from locally sourced coffee beans, roasted and blended in small batches.
And if you like the coffee, you can buy BiziBean roasts and take them home as well. With these takeaway blends, BiziBean aims to change the at-home coffee experience with high-quality coffee sourced directly from Indian farmers and made available at an affordable price.
In the last five years, BiziBean has expanded to 11 outlets in Delhi-NCR, and three stores, 37 concession stands across India PVR Cinemas, Spencer Retail, and Modern Bazar across 13 cities in India.
Apart from the physical stores, the company also sells coffee via its website. The brand has approximately served over one million cups of coffee in the last financial year.
Classic Coffees
Tapaswini Purnesh. Director of Marketing and Promotions, Classic Group
About eight years ago, India’s most famous coffee connoisseur Sunalini Menon did two coffee blends for Classic Coffees. It started off as a pet project as Tapaswini Purnesh, a fifth-generation entrepreneur from the Classic family, wanted Indian coffee lovers to enjoy coffee of export quality.
Tapaswini decided she wanted to come up with coffee for different times of the day. In May 2017, Classic Coffees launched four new blends with pure Arabica beans. Interestingly, they were named after the times of the day they were meant to be consumed — Blaze in the morning, Matinee for afternoons, Sundowner in the evening, and Afterhours after dinner. Each 250gm packet was priced at Rs 300.
“We are not just a brand like you see in stores. We are one of the few who do seed-to-cart. We grow it from sapling, pick, and pack. Except the roasting bit, which we outsource, we do everything including processing after plucking. We do small batches for sellers if they want it customised, say fermented in milk. But it will all be sold under our name,” Tapaswini says.
Classic Coffees also has international blends such as Kenyan and Ethiopian through partners in those countries.
Currently, Classic Coffees is sold on online platforms such as , and offline stores, including Westside Gourmet, Namdhari, and Nature’s Basket, and at airports in Delhi and Bengaluru.
The company gets monthly orders of about one tonne now, and is targeting 8-10 tonnes by March 2018.
Third Wave Coffee Roasters
Sushant Goel, Co-founder, Third Wave Coffee Roasters
which was launched in 2016 by Sushant Goel, Ayush Bathwal and Anirudh Sharma, has been making locally sourced specialty coffee more accessible in India. Currently operating across Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, the brand is known for its intricately designed spaces fostering local communities that understand and appreciate specialty coffee.
The offerings range from the classics to handcrafted manual brews and a host of curated beverages paired with a meticulously designed food menu.
Third Wave also decided to organise events to further engage the community. One such event saw a community of artists, illustrators, and writers come together and explore how art and culture can drive people towards a more sustainable future.
Today, the company also hosts events in which it teaches different coffee brewing methods to its clients.
Third Wave aims to set up 100 stores by the end of 2020.
Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta