Category Archives: Coffee News

Brewing storm in coffee country

A regular tea/coffee stall in the coffee belt—Hassan, Chikmagalur and Kodagu districts—of Karnataka (Photo: Getty Images)
A regular tea/coffee stall in the coffee belt—Hassan, Chikmagalur and Kodagu districts—of Karnataka (Photo: Getty Images)

Given the huge role CCD’s V.G. Siddhartha played in India’s coffee ecosystem, there’s uncertainty in the air.

Chikmagalur/Bengaluru:

A memorial service on Tuesday for late V.G. Siddhartha at Mudigere, Karnataka, took a maudlin turn. This was a gathering of coffee growers at the hometown of late Café Coffee Day (CCD) founder, who allegedly ended his life due to financial stress. B.R. Balakrishna, a small planter, was in tears: “Without ‘Anna’, I’m a helpless orphan. I feel like I am better off dead.” He was not an exception; almost all the coffee growers were inconsolable.

Beneath the wailing was the fear that prices and profit from growing coffee could be hit, or that they may not find a buyer like Siddhartha who was also a well-wisher and a mentor. More than the circumstances behind Siddhartha’s death, which has been discussed threadbare, it is what lies ahead that terrifies many—from coffee growers to those working at CCD, a part of Coffee Day Global Ltd.

With Siddhartha vanishing from the scene, coffee growers across the states are anxious about the churn it will bring in to the industry. “The industry will have to go through a period of turmoil until CCD gets a grip on things and it is able to reposition itself as the first company of coffee business in India,” said a veteran grower from neighbouring state Kerala, which accounts for a fifth of India’s coffee production, requesting anonymity.

“But then, whoever heads CCD will have big shoes to fill. To earn the trust of growers like Siddhartha did, to consistently innovate, and, most crucially, to increase the yield and revenue in the business is easier said than done,” he adds.

CCD was one of India’s top 20 leading exporters of coffee, according to the Coffee Board of India’s database. “Nobody can really fill in that space, currently. So everything about what happens ahead will depend on CCD’s survival,” said a Bengaluru-based expert on coffee research, requesting anonymity.

Importance of Siddhartha

Travelling through the coffee growing region of Karnataka—Hassan, Chikmagalur and Kodagu—one is assured of delectable coffee in the middle of nowhere, the aroma from the mug mixed with the air of the hill estates. From the bean to the cup, Siddhartha had his stamp all over the industry and his death is worrying those in the supply side of the business, from growers worried of wholesale prices to exporters concerned how long their dominance in the overseas market will last.

Siddhartha had realized the importance of systems across the value chain, from growing, research, marketing, export and value addition. Most importantly, he drove the expansion of coffee consumption in India, and branded Indian coffee in the international market, said Abhimanyu M.B., a senior member of the state-run Coffee Board of India. “It is a daunting task which can be driven only by those who have shared a dream… I wonder anybody can repeat that performance or take it to the next level.”

Siddhartha also spurred export to the First World by starting overseas consumption market for Indian coffee, partly by starting CCD outlets, and by marketing the finished and value-added products to the importers of coffee. “Today, India exports 30,000 metric tonnes of coffee in all its forms, and to keep up this export volume, the CCD leadership will have to keep up with the spirit of Siddhartha,” added Abhimanyu.

Downstream reforms

At just 59 years, Siddhartha had a great future not only for CCD but for the coffee industry. Over a 100,000 people are employed directly and indirectly in the coffee ecosystem he built. They are all clueless as to who can replace him, and help steward the industry like he did during the last few decades. To understand what their worries are is to essentially know how the coffee industry works and what role the CCD founder played.

“Siddhartha was a visionary for the coffee industry. Right from the plantation, picking up coffee berries, curing them, grading them, marketing them and adding value to them and bring it closer to the lips of millions of coffee lovers not just in India but in six different countries of the world. He was a visionary who saw great things for coffee. From a mere 12,000 tonnes, he took the domestic coffee consumption to 100,000 tonnes per annum,” said K. Jayaram, former president of the Karnataka Coffee Growers Association.

Before Siddhartha started Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co. Ltd in Chikamagalur, he had deeply studied the prospects, problems and scope of coffee cultivation. He developed his own nursery with high yielding varieties such as Kaveri and Chandragiri, which he distributed freely to all planters in three districts. His advisory was to plant them in high density, a revolution of sorts.

The Coffee Board advisory was to plant 1,752 plants per acre, but research done by Siddhartha showed that the plot could accommodate as much as 2,000 plants, which together with new plants could result in a yield increase of at least 20%. Kodagu, Chikmagalur and Hassan were the direct beneficiaries of this research. “This experiment had paid big dividends to the industry, especially to the planters. This was also replicated in smaller coffee growing areas in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Overall, the total area under coffee cultivation soon reached 425,000 hectares in South India,” said Thirtha Mallesh, president of the association.

Lakshman Gowda, a grower in Mudigere, showed a patch of Kaveri and Chandragiri varieties, and said: “Though Siddhartha and his family had thousands of acres of coffee plantation, he did not keep his knowledge for himself. He freely disseminated it among all the planters not only in Karnataka but also in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and at a time when other coffee growing nations like Brazil, Columbia and Vietnam expressed doubts about India’s capacity to increase cultivation.”

Forward trading

Many experts Mint spoke to seemed anxiously waiting for how the untimely death of Siddhartha would impact domestic market prices. Not so long ago, Indian coffee growers were burdened with dependency on the New York and London pricing mechanisms for exports and the Coffee Board for the domestic pricing. A pressure group of private growers led by Siddhartha broke this in the 1990s, and from then on, Indian coffee has developed its own price determination mechanism, with over 110,000 metric tonnes of coffee dependent on the pricing decided by CCD.

Coffee growers in Kodagu, Chikmagalur and Hassan remember that this small region was first to introduce what is known as forward trading in coffee as early as 1996. The association annals point out that Amalgamated Bean Coffee had launched the scheme for growers by benchmarking the daily rates of Arabica parchment variety with the New York and London markets.

In addition, Amalgamated Bean Coffee used to reserve a sizable quantity of coffee beans under the forward trading norms which benefitted all planters supplying raw beans to Amalgamated Bean Coffee . “As a result, there emerged a self-regulating mechanism for coffee pricing and stocking fully under the control of the growers,” said a senior coffee marketing officer of the Coffee Board, requesting anonymity.

“This was done on fine forward trading norms. Siddhartha had so much liquidity in trading coffee domestically that the growers could bet their stocks under forward trading with Siddhartha. No trading house except CCD was able to match,” said Nanjappa, who is a coffee activist of Kodagu. The growers benefitted out of this arrangement, he added.

“We growers could gain at least 15-20% annual profits due to forward trading. A grower having even a smallholding of 2-5 acres could make a handsome profit. With Siddhartha gone, the growers are now left at the mercy of other trading firms that are more profit-motivated for themselves than that of the growers.”

Siddhartha hardly made any profit out of these reforms, according to experts, and in fact, when Coffee Day Global Ltd (formerly Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co. Ltd) was floated he even went under financial stress. But this heralded the foray into value addition in the coffee business.

When the first CCD outlet was opened in Bengaluru in 1996, it was a shock to the coffee lovers of Bengaluru, known for its filter coffee culture. “It was hard to trust any coffee that came out of an espresso machine. We thought who would sit over a cup of coffee for hours, that too paying at least five times more than the filter coffee available at neighbouring Ranganatha Cafe?” reminiscences Srikanth Rao, a coffee aficionado, who is a top executive in a multinational company in the city.

CCD made sure that it captured the coffee consumer market in Bengaluru first, which according to the CCD research unit was a top coffee consumers in the country, second only to Chennai. Then, Bengaluru had become well known for its pubs. But Siddhartha bet on the young crowd spending quality time at a cafe, and his signature statement “a lot could happen over coffee” paid off. This is when the IT crowd, college goers, and company executives started frequenting CCD outlets all over Bengaluru and using CCD outlets as their makeshift offices, conference rooms and client meeting places.

In conclusion

CCD looms larger than life over the industry. That’s why there’s fear in the air. “Their growth created a good base and gave some kind of stability for domestic prices. That is the reason why you can find their prices quoted every day in the local newspapers. So if they go down in a spectacular way, the domestic market will also suffer. Some 40,000 employees would also be involved. It has become one of those sectors where growth happened very quickly and suddenly a vacuum has been created,” said the Bengaluru-based expert on coffee research quoted earlier.

One of the reasons Siddhartha, who was always on the lookout for unusual types of coffee, loved Mangaluru was because it serviced the coffee planters of Kodagu, Chikamagalur and Hassan by offering garbling, curing and drying facilities. In particular, “Monsooned Coffee” discovered by Siddhartha was from Mangaluru. When raw coffee beans were stored in depots during the monsoons, the coffee used to get a particular aroma due to the moisture—these were not to be roasted but boiled to make green coffee. That’s why in his home territory, he will be remembered for his role in developing the coffee ecosystem.

M. Raghuram is a journalist based in Mangaluru.

source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Explore / by M. Raghuram and Nidheesh M.K. / August 06th, 2019

Baba’s Beans brings coffee experiments, front and centre

White pepper infused espresso, alongside a mint espresso   | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
White pepper infused espresso, alongside a mint espresso | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Baba’s Beans is not shy to experiment with coffee, and this is what makes them stand out.

The passion for a well-brewed cuppa started back in 2013 when friends-from-college, Sadhvi Ashwani and Mrinal Sharma, now 29, took a trip to Coorg. But the journey onward, to opening a coffee bar wasn’t obvious. The duo, one a philosophy major and the other a commerce graduate, had a nose for coffee and kept at it. They visited the homes of farmers kind enough to educate them about the crop; they collaborated with chefs, pairing coffees with menus; they even did a course at the Coffee Board of India.

The duo’s latest venture, at ALOFT in Aerocity, Baba’s Beans is here to break every pre-existing notion of coffee: the brew isn’t exclusive to those who know their mocha from a macchiato; it doesn’t have to be in a mug, a shot cup, or a tumbler. And most importantly, coffee isn’t just fuel that minimises sleep and maximises productivity.

The name, Baba’s Beans, is a hat-tip to Baba Budan, the 17th century Sufi saint from the subcontinent who smuggled in the bean from Mocha, in Yemen to Chikmaglur, in Karnataka in 1616 AD; they talk about how coffee really drove the Enlightenment; and about how the Tontine Coffeehouse was the birthplace of the New York Stock Exchange.

The vibe: Enter ALOFT, and they’re to the immediate left. It’s one of those open nooks, like stores in an airport, which dilutes Baba Bean’s personality a little bit. Their older outlet at The Ambassador Hotel sees a distinctly older crowd. They’re expecting a younger audience here.

Do try: Everything on their lab menu. The Berry Brew is a lightly sweet and fresh cold brew, with an infusion of four berries, coffee being the most prominent, with undertones of strawberry, blueberry, and blackcurrant. It’s a healthier version of the coffee-tonic. The Coconut Capuccino beings in a gentle nuttiness to the cup, a welcome change from the sugary hazelnut syrups of big coffee chains. The Blackbird is bound to be a hit this winter, served in a brandy snifter, this espresso-based drink is infused with ginger, clove, lemon, honey, and mint. Is there anything that coffee can’t do?

Skip: Their regular menu, if you’re tired of looking up the difference between a doppio, ristretto, and lungo. The staff will help, but you can find this anywhere else in the multitude of coffee places that’ve sprung up in the last handful of years, all also made from the same handful of estates of Kerala and Karnataka.

Go with: With a book, or work for long hours. Meet a friend or two in transit at the IGI airport. Not for big groups.

Space bar: 600 sq ft approximately; 20 covers

How much: ₹1,000 for two

Reach: A 10-minute walk from the Delhi Aerocity metro station on the Airport Line on Delhi Metro.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food – Review / by Vangmayi Parakala / July 31st, 2019

Smell The Coffee

Coffee Board has adopted blockchain in an attempt to provide an edge to growers and coffee from India

Photograph by Reuben Singh
Photograph by Reuben Singh

How much do coffee growers make from a cup coffee that costs $4 on streets of New York or London?” asks Srivatsa Krishna, Chairman and CEO, Coffee Board of India. Based on street shopping experience, I say 50 cents. He asks me to take another guess. Figuring that it could be lower, I come up with 35 cents. Srivatsa says, “All that they make is 4-5 cents on a $4 cup of coffee.” That’s just 1 per cent of the price charged in New York for the world’s only shade-grown, hand-picked coffee and sun-dried beans, which fall under the mild category.

India, which began commercial coffee production in the 18th century, has 3,50,000 farmers who grow around 3,19,000 metric tonnes (in 2018/19) over 4,50,000 hectares. Despite it being among the top 10 coffee growing countries – over 80 per cent of the crop is exported – returns to farmers are minuscule. Growers have all along struggled to make extra bucks out of the coffee value chain.

According to the Coffee Board, cultivable coffee land in India, which was around 92,000 hectares in the 1950s, had grown to around 4,00,000 hectares in 2010. Since then, there has been little addition. Currently, coffee is cultivated by small growers (under 10 hectares). While cultivable area has stagnated, productivity has grown 10 times. “Our productivity was 100 kilograms per hectare in 1950. Today, we are at around 1,000 kilograms per hectare,” says Srivatsa.

However, higher production has not been of much help to farmers, and that’s what the Coffee Board is hoping to address by using blockchain technology. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology which allows members to record transactions in a decentralised data log maintained on a network of computers rather than a physical ledger or a single database. The aim is the reduce the middlemen in the value chain. Ethiopia and France already do this.

Sahadev Balakrishna, former Chairman of the Karnataka Planters Association, says in a commodity business like coffee, trading margins are low, 1-1.5 per cent for exporters and curers. The bulk of the profit goes to roasters and retailers. “If a grower sells to a curer or roaster, the price realisation is much better.” There are a number of middlemen clogging the coffee value chain in India. The number of middlemen could be three-six people depending on whether the coffee is for domestic consumption or for export. A blockchain marketplace could disrupt this.

On the Same Platform

The Coffee Board asked Bengaluru-based Eka Software, which offers commodity software, to develop a blockchain software. This is being tested as an app. The pilot, as of now, has 22 participants, which includes buyers, coffee roasters and growers. The stakeholders in the coffee ecosystem – which includes coffee farmers, traders, coffee curers, exporters, roasters, importers and retailers – have to register. Growers can offer any quantity and quality at their expected price for sale. The buyers can either agree to buy at the said price or make alternative offers. Once both parties agree on a price, the transaction is completed.

Blockchain provides a real-time secure framework for sharing ledgers and transactions, a digital ID that follows a physical product, smart contracts, and also the source of record accessible to all parties, making the platform transparent.

Nishan R. Gurjer, a sixth generation coffee grower and exporter who opted to be a part of the experiment, says the entire coffee industry is seeing a shift. “The coffee world is moving away from the traditional middlemen. Right from the origin to the attributes of coffee beans, from taste profile to carbon footprint, blockchain provides key information that consumers are seeking,” he adds. The grower provides this information and it is certified by the Coffee Board.

More importantly, growers have a bigger say in the price they get. “With the grower getting less than 10 per cent of the value, blockchain addresses the issue of transparency and gives better bargaining power for good coffee,” adds Gurjer. Though the blockchain platform is at a nascent stage, Gurjer says he is seeing more enquiries than before, and the democratic pricing gives him more comfort.

Second, the technology also provides agility and scalability. Even though the platform currently does not have an in-app payment option, it is likely to be integrated shortly.

Manav Garg, CEO and Founder of Eka Software, says the building applications on blockchain have been simplified: one can define the fields where data has to be captured, and set rules regarding who can create a record and who can modify. “You can deploy the contract quickly. The whole infrastructure is fairly distributed and there are miners who check them to verify legitimacy,” says Garg. Agility also comes from the fact that multiple versions of the contract can be deployed and changed to stay in step with evolving contract regulations. “For example the current coffee marketplace has gone through several modifications since the work began. When we started discussions, the model envisaged was a bid-ask system like in any stock exchange. Later, we became grower centric so that buyers don’t bring down the price. Later, buyers also wanted better control, so the model was tweaked to enable them to start contracts. On blockchain, it was fairly easy for us to modify and migrate through these multiple models,” Garg adds.

For growers, the platform provides democratic pricing. He can quote a price and negotiate discreetly with the buyer, with other growers not knowing the final price of the coffee, hence offering a better chance of higher price realisation for specialty coffee.

Premium Efforts

The government, too, is taking some steps to support the coffee market. In a bid to increase value and traceability, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade recently awarded five new geographical indication (GI) tags – Coorg Arabica, Chikmaglur Arabica and Bababudangiris Arabica from Karnataka, Wayanad Robusta from Kerala and Araku Valley Arabica from Andhra Pradesh.

The franchise of the Coffee Board’s quick service restaurant India Coffee House has been given to two private players – Cafe Coffee Day and Afoozo group – for a facelift. India will also host the prestigious World Coffee Conference, the first ever in Asia, in September 2020.

International coffee prices have declined since 2017, mostly due to over-supply, says the International Coffee Organisation. There is a surplus of 4.16 million bags from 2017. It expects production at 168.05 million bags for 2018/19 compared to 165.54 million bags in 2017/18, and consumption at around 164.99 million bags. So, a surplus of 3.06 million bags is expected, making it a straight second year of surplus.

With low prices for coffee expected to continue, Indian coffee growers now stand at the cusp of technology adoption and creation of a brand identity as India readies to serve a fresh brew to the world.

@rukminirao
source: http://www.businesstoday.in / Business Today / Home> Business Today> The Hub> Story / by Rukmini Rao, New Delhi / print edition August 11th, 2019 – online edition 25th July 2019

How CCD owner VG Siddhartha created the largest coffee empire in India

Here is all you need to know about VG Siddhartha, the founder and owner of Indian coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day. VG Siddhartha has been missing since Monday morning.

The sudden disappearance of the owner and founder of the popular coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day, VG Siddhartha has sparked mass speculation.

Siddhartha, who is the son-in-law of former Karnataka CM SM Krishna, got off his car near the Netravati River off Mangaluru on Monday evening and has been missing ever since.

Dakshina Kannada Police has launched a frantic search to look for the prominent Karnataka-based businessman.

BUT WHO IS VG SIDDHARTHA?

Born in Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka, VG Siddhartha comes from a family that has been in the business of coffee plantation for around 140 years.

He is credited with creating India’s largest coffee empire. He is also married to the daughter of former Karnataka CM SM Krishna.

Earning a masters from the Mangalore University, VG Siddhartha dabbled in the stock market in his early career. He joined JM Financial Limited in 1983-1984 in Mumbai as a management trainee/intern in Portfolio Management and securities trading on the Indian Stock Market under Vice-Chairman Mahendra Kampani. He was just 24 years then.

After two years with JM Financial Limited, VG Siddhartha returned to Bangalore. His father gave him money to start a business of his choice. VG Siddhartha bought a stock market card for Rs 30,000, along with a company called Sivan Securities, which was renamed in 2000 as Way2wealth Securities Ltd. Its venture capital division came to be known as Global Technology Ventures (GTV).

By 1985, he was a full-time proprietary investor in the stock market and owner of 10,000 acres of coffee farms. He says, When coffee trading was liberalised in the ’90s, I doubled the money I had invested in the plantations within a year.

CAFFEINATED DREAMS

Thus, was born the Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd (ABCTCL) in 1993, a company focused on coffee exports. While his plantations produced 3,000 tonnes of coffee, ABCTCL would trade 20,000 tonnes. In two years, the company became the second-largest exporter from India.

The coffee bug had bitten VG Siddhartha.

In 1996, the first CCD store opened on Bangalore’s crowded Brigade Road, where coffee and an hour of Internet surfing cost Rs 100. The coffee chain’s first launch came at a time when Bangalore was on the cusp of a transformation from a pensioners’ paradise to an IT and lifestyle haven.

In doing this, VG Siddhartha and his team went against the better judgement of his MBA friends. The cafe was a runaway success.

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters

While Coffee Day was taking its time in expansion, other rival chains came along and took the concept national. In its new strategy, CCD would open its store right next to its rival.

CCD is India’s largest coffee chain and is owned by Coffee Day Global which is a subsidiary of Coffee Day Enterprises.

Today, CCD has around 1,700 cafes, around 48,000 vending machines, 532 kiosks and 403 ground coffee selling outlets.

A Money Control report puts the annual turnover of the Coffee Day Enterprises at Rs 4,264 crore.

VG Siddhartha owns 12,000 acres (4047 ha) of coffee plantations. A 2015 Forbes list pegged his net worth at $1.2 billion (Rs 8200 crore).

It was reported recently that Coca-Cola was in early talks with CCD to acquire a substantial stake in India’s largest coffee chain. CCD was eyeing a valuation of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore from Coca-Cola for the stake sale.

Besides CCD, VG Siddhartha has founded a hospitality chain which runs a seven-star resort Serai and Cicada.

Currently, he also holds board seats in GTV, Mindtree, Liqwid Krystal, Way2Wealth and Ittiam. Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro had recently purchased around 20 per cent stake of VG Siddhartha and Cafe Coffee Day in tech company Mindtree through block deal for about Rs 3,210 crore.

VG Siddhartha was awarded the Entrepreneur of the year’ for 2002-03 by the Economic Times, for crafting a successful pan-Indian brand from a commodity business.

CAUGHT IN CONTROVERSY

VG Siddhartha was accused of tax evasion in 2017. Income tax raids were conducted at over 20 locations in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Chikmagalur by senior officers of Income Tax Department of Karnataka and Goa regions.

The Income Tax Department raids on Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) retail chain found Rs 650 crore concealed income from the documents seized.

source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> Business / by India Today Web Desk, New Delhi / July 30th, 2019

Task force to study coffee sector issues

To submit report to Commerce Minister by Aug.31

The Union Government is expected to soon set up a task force that will engage with various stakeholders in the coffee sector, examine the issues faced by it and make suitable recommendations to the Union Commerce Minister.

According to Jeffry Rebello, chairman of the coffee committee of the United Planters’ Association of Southern India, the industry representatives held detailed discussions with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal recently on the issues faced by the sector.

This included the need for better research, permitting growers to add value, bringing down the percentage of chicory permitted to be mixed with coffee and schemes of the Coffee Board.

“We had presented a memorandum too. The Minister had announced that a two-member team will be formed and it will meet the stakeholders. The team is expected to submit its report to the Minister by August 31,” he said.

Welcoming the announcement on the task force, Mr. Rebello said it is likely to be set up soon after the Budget session of the Parliament, he said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Business / by Special Correspondent / Coimbatore – July 27th, 2019

Coffee industry sees increasing demand globally

According to industry reports, coffee shops and cafés market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 11 per cent during the period 2016-2021.

A cup of coffee is all it takes to get one's day started
A cup of coffee is all it takes to get one’s day started

While the essence of coffee is lost amongst major players in the industry, a group of coffee lovers are taking their adulation for the beverage to a larger audience, nudging them to wake up and smell what real coffee is.

In this quest, they are also bringing forth the significant role India plays as a major player in the production of good coffee.

According to industry reports, coffee shops and cafés market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 11 per cent during the period 2016-2021.

This high growth is primarily on account of the growing coffee culture among the young population, especially the millennials, rising disposable income among other factors.

“This coupled with the implementation of various government plans to develop smart cities, etc., is projected to drive growth in Indian market for coffee shops / cafés over next many years,” shares Aharnish Mishra, co-founder of Bizibean, which got involved in the B-to-B R&G (Roast and Ground) coffee segment from 2004. They were naturally inclined to foray into the retail segment.

“This was a natural extension to our roasting business. We thought the market is ready for a brand that epitomises gourmet coffee and offers its patron speciality coffee both in bean form as well as RTD form,” he says.

While there has been a growth in the coffee market, it is still in its infancy as compared to the global market.

“People are only just beginning to learn the basics and are willing to experiment with different coffees and brewing equipments,” says Krittivas Dalmia, Co-Founder, Kaffa Cerrado, adding, “There is a very small percentage of the market willing to experiment. So there’s a long way to go before we can become a mature coffee market.”

Desi cuppa

The Indian fresh R&G coffee market for domestic consumption is a very small one and is geographically concentrated in the southern part of the country.

Mishra believes that there is no mainstream coffee variety and due to the cost factor, cheaper Robusta blended with a little Arabicas and Chicory is the de facto coffee blend consumed at home.

“The Indian coffees that are internationally popular but find little takers in the domestic market are Monsoon Malabar AA, Mysore Nugget Extra Bold, Plantation AA and Robust Kapi Royale,” he adds.

However, according to Dalmia, there are a lot of plantations that have started selling under their own branding or as a single plantation. “These are all unique because of the different practices and procedures they follow in processing and harvesting the coffee. The beauty of the third wave is that it’s all unique,” says Dalmia.

Brewing hot in India

“Traditionally this role of educating and growing the market is taken up by the bigger players like CCD/ Starbucks in conjunction with the government bodies like Coffee Board of India,” says Mishra, adding, “Sadly, in India this hasn’t happened with the result that the smaller and newer player have to expend energy and resources to nurture the market.

“At BiziBean, we assume the role of missionaries and spread the story of the coffee bean by bean! We have taken the kiosk format route with value pricing strategy to make the experience of having or buying coffee a very pleasurable one.

“All our counter staff is well versed with the intricacies of coffee and performs the role of guides to our patrons.”

On the other hand, Dalmia works with the farmers in bringing out their story and flavour in the way they roast. “The more we’re able to educate our consumers on that, the more they’re willing to try.

So it’s a lot of work in educating the consumer by everyone in the coffee chain right from the farmer to the roaster to the barista and coffee shop,” he states.

The competition is usually in terms of cafes or instant coffee space. There isn’t much completion when we talk about home coffee, feels Ajai Thandi, Co-founder of Sleepy Owl.

“Rooted in the spirit of Make in India, their vision was to rethink the in-home coffee experience while wanting their patrons to have the best quality coffee as conveniently as possible and consume it its best; using the best quality coffee sourced directly from Indian farmers.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Food / by Express News Service / July 08th, 2019

Matt Chitharanjan: Brewing the perfect cup

Matt Chitharanjan (Jayachandran/Mint)
Matt Chitharanjan (Jayachandran/Mint)

Matt Chitharanjan, co-founder, Blue Tokai, talks about the artisanal coffee wave, the importance of package design, and ordering Americanos on food delivery apps

Blue Tokai has now grown from a single roastery-cafe and e-commerce venture in 2016 to 21 cafes in Delhi and the National Capital Region, Jaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru
_____________________________

It was in January 2016 that I first visited Blue Tokai, tucked away in the by-lanes of Said-ul-Ajaib in south Delhi. For a coffee junkie like me, it was an exciting prospect to visit a new roastery—the first in Delhi at the time—that focused on single-estate beans from India. It was after several wrong turns that I found Blue Tokai, located a stone throw’s from car workshops and cramped houses.

The urban chaos dissipated the minute I entered the roastery-café, where I was greeted by the whirring of grinders and the warm enveloping aroma of coffee. The co-founder, Matt Chitharanjan, 37, could be seen working with a team of roasters, controlling the temperature and humidity to extract the best flavour possible from the coffee bean. It was a process called profile roasting, something Blue Tokai was the first to offer in the Capital.

It has been three years since that first visit and much has changed. Artisanal coffee has become a part of hipster culture, and many more coffee entrepreneurs have joined Blue Tokai in offering Indian consumers A-grade beans straight from plantations located in Chikmagalur, Kodaikanal, Coorg, even Nagaland. The average millennial is now aware of the complex notes and flavour profiles underlying coffee—incidentally, while wine has 200-400 notes, coffee has 1,200—and even has a favourite estate from which his or her beans are sourced.

As I head to Blue Tokai again, these changes are even more palpable. For one, it is no longer the sole occupant of the lane in Said-ul-Ajaib. Now called Champa Gali, the little alley is teeming with eateries such as Jugmug Thela and Studio Thali, dedicated to the quaint and the artisanal. Meanwhile, Blue Tokai has grown from a single roastery-café and e-commerce venture in 2016 to 21 cafés in Delhi and the National Capital Region, Jaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru, with plans to open more in the next four months in the these three metro cities. Chitharanjan and I settle down at a table overlooking the roastery with a couple of Americanos—mine being from Karnataka’s Attikan Estate, a medium dark brew with notes of dark chocolate, figs and roasted almonds—and look back at how the company and the coffee culture in India have grown in tandem.

The roots of Blue Tokai lie in Chitharanjan’s personal quest for good coffee. “I grew up in the US, and my father is from Chennai. While growing up, my parents would drink a lot of filter coffee,” he says. When he moved to San Francisco after completing his master’s degree in economics from the University of British Columbia, the third wave of coffee (the speciality coffee movement) was sweeping across the US. “Blue Bottle Coffee had opened a café close to my apartment and a lot of local roasteries were nearby. I got exposed to better-sourced and better-roasted beans,” says Chitharanjan, who started roasting beans as a hobby. Some years later, his work as an economist brought him to Chennai, and it was while working at the Institute for Financial Management and Research that he met his wife, Namrata Asthana.

In 2012, the couple was hoping to start an entrepreneurial venture and coffee was a common point of interest. “We moved to Delhi and it was very difficult to find good coffee here. There were either Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) outlets or very expensive imported coffee. So, Namrata said why not try doing coffee on our own,” says Chitharanjan. The couple reached out to growers who were producing high-quality beans and tried to convince them to sell a part of the produce to them. In early 2016, Blue Tokai received seed funding from Snow Leopard Ventures and Bold Ventures. “We have also raised subsequent rounds of funds after the initial seed funding,” he says.

Slowly and steadily, they started getting green coffee beans from single estates in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which would then be profile-roasted fresh on order, ground to a perfect grain according to the customer’s requirement, and shipped within 24 hours.

According to Chitharanjan, coffee should be consumed within three-four weeks of being roasted. One of the reasons that the brew served in coffee chains or bought off the shelves sometimes tastes stale is because it takes a long time for the coffee to make its way through the supply chain, thereby leading to a breakdown in flavour compounds. Which is why now even restaurants and hotels such as the Roseate House in Delhi and the Oberoi Patisserie in Gurugram order roasted beans directly from Blue Tokai and serve them fresh to diners.

Was it difficult initially to convince farmers to part with their A-grade beans to an Indian coffee startup? “It was. They felt it was a waste of their time, as until then no one in India had been willing to pay a premium for high-quality beans. When we approached them, there was reluctance and also a sense of wariness about who we were and what we were doing,” says Chitharanjan.

The couple was upfront with plantation owners about the fact that the packages would feature the name of the estate the coffee was sourced from. This was crucial both to maintain transparency and educate the consumer. “Each estate has its own terroir, which impacts the flavour profile. And that needed to get highlighted,” he says. For instance, the organic coffee from M S Estate in Chikmagalur. which is grown at an altitude of 1,100-1,400m, is wash-processed and has notes of berries, molasses and milk chocolate. The Bibi Plantation AAA coffee from Coorg, on the other hand, is grown at a lower altitude, and has warm notes of toffee, almond and caramel. “It was a risk for the plantations too. If we did a bad job, they would get a bad name. Luckily, they took a chance on us,” he says.

Once Blue Tokai started selling artisanal coffee online, it began to get word-of-mouth publicity. “One of the good things about coffee is that it is very community driven. People who like coffee are very vocal about their favourite brands and they tell everyone about it. We were lucky in the beginning as there was this unmet demand for what we were offering. So, appreciation for Blue Tokai grew organically,” says Chitharanjan.

Initially, he participated in farmers’ markets and embassy events. It was a time when e-commerce ventures were taking off and people were slowly getting used to finding coffee online, but “the online market wasn’t very crowded at that time”, he says.

One of the striking things about Blue Tokai coffee is not just the quality of the roast but also the packaging, with artwork by folk and tribal artists such as Sukhandi Vyam at the back, and information about the estate, type of processing and date of roast in the front.

“That was all Namrata. I was worried about the price and wanted to do basic simple packaging. But she has a background in design and communications, and it was she who came up with the logo and the idea to customize the pack with the name of the consumer and to put artwork as well. All this connects with our ethos of sustainability, transparency and education,” says Chitharanjan.

In fact, consumer education is always on top of Chitharanjan’s list. There are classes every month at Said-ul-Ajaib and the café in Mumbai for customers on how to make coffee on machines, and even manual brewing sessions for those interested. There are sessions on roasting and cupping. Last year, he roped in two experts from Australia to put together a barista and roaster training school in Said-ul-Ajaib and Mumbai. “We train baristas at other restaurants that stock Blue Tokai as well so that they are able to tell our story better,” he says. Of late, he has been noticing demand for artisanal coffee from smaller cities and towns such as Thane and Jodhpur. “People are opening up cafés in some of the tier 2 cities. They have been exposed to good-quality coffee through some channel and are interested in bringing it back to wherever they live,” says Chitharanjan.

At a time when the gourmet coffee market is growing, with names such as The Flying Squirrel, Koinonia, Black Baza, Halli Berri and Third Wave innovating with high-quality Indian beans, what is it that differentiates Blue Tokai from the rest? “I think we are all complementing each other in this ecosystem. Everyone is catering to their own customer base and helping the market grow in its own unique way. All our coffees are different, sourced from different estates. Even when we source from the same estate, the way we roast the coffee is different from others,” says Chitharanjan.

At the end, the customer is the winner, with a variety of styles and options at his disposal. “We want to be known as the coffee company and not as a café company. Even though we have 20-plus cafés at the moment, we don’t want to be the next CCD or Starbucks,” he says. The idea is for the coffee to be accessible and for the Blue Tokai cafés to act as customer engagement points, with a team of baristas guiding them.

“Putting together a coffee culture is important to us. Some entrepreneurs feel their coffee should taste good simply because they have bought a machine worth lakhs and good-quality beans. Anyone can press buttons on a machine, but an untrained person can easily ruin your coffee,” Chitharanjan says.

For most of us, coffee is a way to de-stress. But I wonder if this holds true for Chitharanjan, who is surrounded by the whiffs and smell of coffee all day. “I still have four-five cups a day. But for me, the best way to de-stress is spending time with family in the evening,” he says.

Having said that, his palate has changed over the years. He used to drink instant coffee while growing up, but after being exposed to the third wave of coffee, he moved to lighter roasted ones. “I used to make pour-overs at home all the time. But I have become so lazy now that I order Americanos from Zomato all the time. It is interesting to see delivery aggregators change my own consumption behaviour,” says Chitharanjan, who is now working on packaging techniques to help coffee transport better.

***

Notes that you enjoy in a cup of coffee

I enjoy fruity and floral notes in a coffee, as well as depth of flavour. You end up finding new notes as the coffee cools down.

How do you unwind?

By spending time with my family and exploring new destinations. One country on my bucket list is Japan.

Your favourite book

‘The Asian Saga’, a series of six books by James Clavell, which traces the lives of Europeans living in Asia.

Your favourite café

Father Carpenter in Berlin has great coffee, good food, and, most importantly, knowledgeable staff, which has none of the pretensions that you encounter in speciailty cafés.

source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Explore / by Avantika Bhuyan / July 04th, 2019

How his mother’s search for the perfect cup of coffee led this entrepreneur to found a ‘filterless’ decoction business

Harold Pereira started TrueSouth in Mysuru after spending 16 years in R&D to brew the perfect cup of convenient instant coffee.

Harold Pereira, Founder, TrueSouth
Harold Pereira, Founder, TrueSouth

As Terri Guillemets once said, “Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with.” For many coffee lovers, the day does not begin without a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee. And if you are a coffee connoisseur, you would definitely look forward to the aroma of filter coffee wafting through your home.

But what if you did not have time to make a cup of filter coffee in the morning but wish to have coffee running through veins nevertheless? Understanding the time constraints of coffee lovers, Harold Pereira launched True South, an instant coffee decoction brand in Mysuru in July 2013.

While growing up, Harold had seen his mother preparing the coffee decoction before she went to bed every night. The first thing she did in the morning was to have her cup of coffee and head to church. And, at times, if she had forgotten to perform this activity at night, she would miss her coffee and her day just wouldn’t start right.

In this video interview with SMB Story Harold Pereira, Founder of TrueSouth, explains how his mother’s conundrum to brew the best decoction led him to start TrueSouth. Says,

video 01

I wondered why she did not just make the decoction in the morning? Little did I understand then, about the time, skill, and effort required to make a decoction. The freshly brewed decoction is always the best, as the profile changes within two to three hours, but households compromised and made it in the night to have the decoction ready in the morning.”

And, this got him thinking: why can’t filter coffee be filterless?

Harold then started experimenting by preparing instant filter coffee decoction without preservatives, which would taste similar to the freshly brewed filter coffee. It took him 16 long years to come up with the product, and today, TrueSouth is among the first brands to launch this first-of-its-kind product.

TrueSouth is a true farm-to-table organisation as it grows, roast, grinds, processes, and packages and sells the coffee decoction. The coffee is shade-grown, hand-picked, and sun-dried at Harold’s own farms. It is then carefully roasted and processed in the plant to ensure quality, consistency, and convenience. Quality is adhered to at every level of operations and the company complies with all the necessary FSSAI, HACCP, and halal regulations.

Struggle with the R&D

Talking about the tough phase of Research & Development of the instant coffee decoction, Harold says that he didn’t pour in a lot of money, but used the coffee beans from his own plantations in Chikmagalur and Coorg to come up with the right product. His team was doing the R&D under Hindustan Food and Beverages, which was formed in 1996.

Initially, they packed the decoction in bottles and within a day, they would bloat and explode. Then they added preservatives to the product to stabilise it but prominent coffee cuppers likened the taste of the coffee to that of cough syrups. He says,

“We have our own R&D team and multiple iterations and years of hard work led us to our product today, which is a boon for coffee lovers that makes the sip of their morning coffee easier without any hassle,” Harold adds.

Market reach

Harold first targeted the HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant, and Cafe) segment. The chefs loved the decoction, and it was an instant hit; TrueSouth decoction is now available in ITC hotels, Leela chain, Lemon Tree chain, and more.

“We also make machines which make the decoction relevant in different environments like office spaces, cafes, etc. All the machines are designed and produced in-house. We also run five small outlets across Chennai and Bengaluru,” Harold explains.

The company is also exporting the brand and has managed to make inroads in the UAE and the UK market. TrueSouth is also available in multiple quick service restaurant (QSR) chains across the country and is listed on Amazon and Bigbasket too.

At present, TrueSouth records 28 percent YoY growth.

Future prospects

On future plans, Harold says that the company is focussed on R&D and soon will come up with a few more products. He is also planning to come up with a kiosk model, and expand to other parts of the country.

source: http://www.yourstory.com / Your Story / Home> SMB Story / by Palak Agarwal / June 03rd, 2019

Coffee Board takes tech route to help growers boost yield

App-solutely smart: In the case of white stem borer, growers and the Board have validated 90% accuracy.   | Photo Credit: Reuters
App-solutely smart: In the case of white stem borer, growers and the Board have validated 90% accuracy. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Apps fed with data help forecast weather, predict leaf rust

For the 3.5 lakh coffee growers in India, 98% of whom are small-scale, challenges affecting production include labour shortage, climate change and pest attacks.

One way to manage these is by adopting technology, which the Coffee Board is trying to bring about for the growers.

Last year, Eka Software Solutions took up a pilot project for the Coffee Board of India on machine-learning based applications. According to Shuchi Nijhawan, vice president – agri business for Eka Software, the Board and the company took up three areas to try machine learning based apps. One was addressing the white stem borer problem, another was weather forecasting, and the third, predicting leaf rust.

Machine-learning

“Based on the data, photos provided, we created a machine learning algorithm to forecast each of these issues (for a grower). We worked with 20 liaison officers of the Board and they coordinated with the growers.

“The success of the app depends on the data fed in. In the case of white stem borer, the growers and the Board have validated 90% accuracy,” she says. Eka’s digital platform for agriculture aggregates data from different sources and applies the algorithm to provide insight to the coffee growers.

Srivatsa Krishna, chairman of the Coffee Board, adds that though there is no exact data, it is learnt that in the last 10 to 15 years white stem borer would have brought down Arabica production by 25-30%. “The growers do need solutions for such issues.”

“Despite the Coffee Act having been around for more than seven decades, farmers have zero technology. The only way to increase productivity is by bringing in technology,” he says. Even before smartphones became popular, coffee growers had checked prices on the London and New York exchanges almost on a daily basis.

Hence, adopting technology should not be difficult for them. The Board has plans to scale up the analytics technology for adoption by more farmers.

Currently, 90% of the estates depend on labourers for most of the work and there is not much technology adoption among coffee growers in cultivation or to increase production.

“If someone is ready to do it [technology] for us, we will adopt it. It will help increase yield,” says Sundar Subramanium, executive director of Mother Mirra Coffee Plantations. Ms. Nijhawan says the company is exploring partnerships for other crops too. “Indian farmers want such technology services. There are several agriculture institutes and cooperatives in the country that have a lot of data. I see a huge potential for these technologies.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Business> Industry> Green Shoots / by M Soundariya Preetha / June 02nd, 2019

Tata Coffee opens first freeze-dried production plant outside of India

Tata Coffee has opened its first free-dried instant coffee plant outside of its native India after GEA, a tech supplier for food processing, completed work on the new Vietnam plant.

After Brazil, Vietnam is the world’s second largest producer of green coffee and the new plant based in Binh Duong Province produces 5,000 metric tonnes per year of free-dried coffee.

GEA supplied the entire production line from roast bean treatment right through to the packing of the freeze-dried powder.

This isn’t the first time GEA has undertaken work for Tata Coffee, having built a coffee extraction and evaporation plant for the company in 2013.

“This type of project is ideal for us at GEA because our expertise and scope of supply allows us to build the entire coffee line using our own resources,” said Kim Knudsen, Head of Sales, Coffee and Freeze Drying at GEA.

“This means we can maintain control and take responsibility for the entire project from start to finish.”

source: http://www.fdiforum.net / Food & Drink International / Home> Production / by Dominic Cuthbert / May 28th, 2019