Staff work behind the counter of India’s first newly-inaugurated Starbucks outlet in Mumbai on October 19, 2012. / Photo- PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s also one of the coffee chain’s fastest-growing markets.
Starbucks for the first time will sell single-origin, premium coffee from India in the United States as part of its effort to support coffee production in the country better known for its tea.
Starbucks SBUX -0.23% for a limited time later this year will sell a small-lot arabica coffee from the Tata Nullore Estates in India’s Coorg coffee growing area. The coffee will be roasted and sold at Starbucks’ Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle. The price was not disclosed.
John Culver, group president for Starbucks Coffee China/Asia Pacific, told Reuters that the aim is for this to be the “first step in what we hope will be many reserve coffees coming out of India.”
It’s also one of the coffee chain’s fastest-growing markets.
India, which produces both robusta and arabica, is the world’s sixth-largest coffee producer. Its coffee output has increased 16% over the past 5 years, according to International Coffee Organization (ICO) data.
India’s estimated 2015/16 harvest is expected to be 5.83 million 60-kg bags of coffee, according to ICO.
The country is one of the coffee chain’s fastest-growing markets. Starbucks’ India, an equal joint venture between Starbucks and Tata Global Beverages Limited, has grown to 84 stores across six cities in India since its start in 2012.
Starbucks India, which so far has served only 100% arabica coffee grown and roasted in India, will also begin offering Kenyan and Sumatran coffee soon, Culver said.
source: http://www.fortune.com / Fortune / Home> Retail> Coffee / by Reuters / June 27th, 2016
Coffee grown at the Tata Nullore Estates located in Coorg will now be available at Starbucks in Seattle. This is the first time Starbucks will offer a single-origin coffee from India in the US.
This is part of the multiple new initiatives decided in a meeting between the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks Coffee Company, Howard Schultz, and Chairman, Tata Sons Ltd, Cyrus Mistry, at the iconic Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle.
“For the first time, Starbucks will offer a single-origin coffee from India in the US, giving customers from outside the country a unique opportunity to experience a rare, small-lot coffee from the Tata Nullore Estates located in the beautiful Coorg coffee growing area of India. Starbucks Reserve Tata Nullore Estates will be the first coffee from India to be roasted at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room and will only be available at this Seattle location later this year,” said a press statement.
Starbucks also announced plans to increase its coffee roasting capacity for supplying its stores in India and, over time, select markets around the globe. Since Tata Coffee Ltd opened its doors to a roasting and packaging plant in Kushalnagar in Coorg, Karnataka, in 2013, this facility has steadily increased its roasting capabilities. Today, it roasts the Starbucks India Estates Blend and Espresso Roast coffees and will soon expand to include both Kenyan and Sumatran coffees for Starbucks stores throughout India.
“We are proud to work with Starbucks, a company which shares our commitment to both the coffee growing regions and the coffee farmers to ensure we meet the global demand for high-quality coffee over the long-term,” said Mistry.
Starbucks also announced it will soon take flight on Vistara, India’s fastest growing full-service airline, later this year. Starbucks’ fresh brewed coffee service will be exclusively available on all Vistara flights. A joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, Vistara operates more than 457 flights weekly to 17 destinations across India and, in June celebrated the milestone of flying two million travellers.
Starbucks will also extend its Teavana specialty tea brand to India this December. Starbucks also plans to expand the availability of Himalayan Mineral Water, bottled by Tata Global Beverages, beyond Starbucks stores in India to Singapore later this year, as the companies explore opportunities to introduce the bottled water brand to stores across Starbucks China and the Asia-Pacific region.
Schultz and Mistry committed to come together to provide young people in India valuable skills training over the next five years through Tata STRIVE, an initiative aimed at arming youth with skills for employment, entrepreneurship and community enterprise.
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Companies / The Hindu Bureau / Mumbai – June 27th, 2016
A waiter serves coffee to customers inside an Indian coffee house in Kolkata June 20, 2014 (Representational image).Reuters file
Coffee prices are at a 13-month high in international markets, after rain hit world’s largest-producer Brazil, lifting share prices of Indian coffee companies on Wednesday.
Tata Coffee was the biggest gainer at 6.21 percent on the BSE at around 2.30 p.m., followed by Tata Global Beverages and Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation.
“In Brazil it is raining too much in the Arabica areas, and this is definitely causing quality concerns,” Reuters had quoted a European physical coffee trader as saying last Friday.
An Indian coffee grower said heavy rainfall is bound to impact harvesting of coffee crop.
“Rains at the time of harvest can damage the crop as the beans will fall off. As a result, Arabica prices have been looking up in the last few days. Also, one cannot wish away the effect of drought in Brazil earlier in the year. Hence, it may not turn out to be a bumper crop as projected but not a bad crop either,” the Economic Times quoted coffee grower Anil Bhandari as saying.
Workers load 60-kg jute bags of coffee beans for export into a container in Santos, Brazil, December 10, 2015.Reuters file
On June 17, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had forecast world coffee production for 2016/17 to rise by 2.4 million bags from the previous year to 155.7 million bags (60 kg per bag). The estimate was based on Arabica output in Brazil increasing to about 60 percent of total production, neutralising lower Robusta production in the country, along with Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Arabica and Robusta are two main categories of coffee worldwide. The Arabica crop determines global coffee prices.
After factoring global consumption at 150.8 million bags, the USDA said exports from Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil and India are likely to remain lower (than last year).
India had exported 3.20 tonnes of coffee in 2015-16, up 13.39 percent from the previous fiscal.
After from being the largest producer, Brazil is also the largest exporter of coffee.
source: http://www.ibtimes.co.in / International Business Times / Home> News> Companies /by S V Krishnamachari / June 22nd, 2016
A bunch of entrepreneurs are using e-commerce to promote freshness, taste and artisanal coffee as replacement for the boring instant stuff
Matt Chitharanjan settles down on a bag of beans. He doesn’t really have much of a choice in this air-conditioned room on the first floor, because it’s packed with sacks and sacks of beans. Coffee beans.
On the ground floor, shutters down at the moment, is a café in the process of construction, set to open soon.
The proprietor of Blue Tokai, one of India’s new online retail coffee ventures, is taking what would seem like the next logical step, opening a café in Mumbai, at the Laxmi Woollen Mills Estate in Mahalaxmi.
He says the café-cum-roastery—they have one in New Delhi already—will allow him to introduce customers to his coffee and help logistically as a storage space for distribution in western India—Mumbai in particular—where a large number of his customers reside.
Blue Tokai is just one of the many entrepreneurial ventures that have bloomed in the past four or five years in the business of coffee. These ventures are sourcing coffee beans directly from the farms, roasting them and selling them online. The high-quality coffee they source was up until now being exported, by estate owners of rich fields in Coorg, Chickmagalur, the Nilgiris and other parts of south India, saving the poorer quality for blends and instant coffee.
Some of these new companies, many retailing online, include The Indian Bean, Flying Squirrel, Seven Beans, The Coffee Company, Black Baza and Estate Craft. Some existing sellers have expanded in scope, like Halli Berri, Kerala’s Riverine and Goa’s Sussegado. Some others, like Vero, sell espresso capsules with machines and Café Rio also does instant coffee.
Each of these new entrepreneurs believe they are doing something slightly different from the other, each trying to find a foothold in a country where coffee seems to be making a strong pitch for mug space.
Many have made their way into shelves in retail stores such as Godrej Nature’s Basket, Food Hall and Westside, and in restaurants and cafés like Indigo Deli in Mumbai and Yogi-sthaan in Bengaluru. Their combined hope is a customer would take that leap of faith, buy a bag and allow the taste to do the rest—i.e., get them to switch from instant coffee to a more brooding variety.
There is no clear indication as to why so many companies would start at the same time with broadly the same ideas. But the growth of e-commerce and global exposure may have something to do with it.
Ashish D’Abreo, one of the founding partners at Flying Squirrel, calls this India’s third wave of coffee, albeit a decade behind the US, where coffee became more of a niche product, like wine, than a commodity. The American third wave brought with it artisanal brands like Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, small-scale coffee sellers more interested in freshness, free trade, organic products and sustainability while providing an alternative to the omnipresent Starbucks.
Brotherhood of brews
There is a common thread that runs through many of these ventures, including international experience and, oddly enough, a background in advertising.
Kunal Ross, one of the partners at The Indian Bean, had a bit of a head start over his friend Chitharanjan. The former lived in Dubai, the latter grew up in the US. Ross has worked in advertising, as has D’Abreo and Sanjoy Gupta of Estate Craft. All of them loved coffee but could not find the taste they wanted in India. They spotted a gap in the market and decided to filter it.
Kunal Ross
These new-age coffee barons speak of their own specialties. Flying Squirrel, so named after the estate’s most frequently seen visitor, the Malabar squirrel, grows its own coffee on one of the partners’ 160-acre farm in Polibetta, Coorg. Blue Tokai does its own roasting, while The Indian Bean does not. D’Abreo of Flying Squirrel, too, believes in the café concept—they are going to open one in Bengaluru soon—while Ross is not sold on the idea.
Blue Tokai identifies the estates from which it sources the coffee on its packaging, for transparency. Seven Beans brings together Indian growers with Italian roasters. Black Baza’s ambition is to improve biodiversity, while Estate Craft is a single-estate coffee. Vero sources the beans and makes capsules in-house.
There is a friendly competition among growers, says Chitharanjan, and so is the case with sellers. The potential market is so large that there is no need for conflict. “There is a possibility that a number of us would drop out, but in this case, it would be one in 10,” says Ross. “Especially in metros, there is no scope for us to fail because it’s a big enough market.”
Their growth has been encouraging, but the figures are also a reflection of the newness of the business and that all of them have started from scratch. Absolute figures are difficult to come by, but Bengaluru-based Flying Squirrel has grown at 15-20% month-on-month, Mumbai-based Indian Bean at 300-400% year-on-year and New Delhi-based Blue Tokai has doubled every year, according to their respective proprietors. Venture capital firm Snow Leopard Ventures invested in Blue Tokai last year.
For others, like Dhruv Kochhar, founder of Vero, the expectation is simple. Coffee pods are a €12 billion business in the Western European coffee market alone, and logically, it should be the next thing to happen in India. “The capsule business will be like Apple in bringing change here,” he says.
Consumption-sales conundrum
At a farmers’ market in Phoenix Mills, Mumbai, over a recent weekend, budding entrepreneurs and traders braved the scorching sun to set up stands in the central courtyard, market their wares and encourage people to try. Flying Squirrel, Estate Craft and Vero had their stalls here. As did Chado, a tea company with so many varieties that they printed a booklet to list them out.
While tea consumption grew at a steady rate of 2% annually for the period 2008-13, coffee grew at 5%, says Bidisha Nagaraj, group president (marketing), Café Coffee Day, quoting a Technopak March 2015 report. “Coffee is becoming more of a fashion statement among the young and upwardly mobile in India,” she adds.
India is predominantly a tea-drinking country, with coffee restricted to the instant variety, except in the south. For a long time, the idea of brewing a cup, either by grinding the beans or using the powder in a French press or filter, has seemed tedious and time-consuming, maybe a little pretentious and perhaps even a bit intimidating.
Keshav Dev, proprietor of one of New Delhi’s long-standing coffee stores Devan’s, disagrees with Nagaraj a bit, based in his own sales. He says people prefer going to a café rather than brewing at home. Though the number of buyers haven’t really increased over the years, according to Dev, they have fallen into a demographic: Expatriates, those who have returned to India after having lived abroad, those who travel abroad frequently and the more “mature”.
That also explains why online sales for many of these companies have been higher in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru than in other places. Urban centres, with greater Internet penetration and better-connected courier services, are naturally faster at adapting to new businesses.
Café online
Cafés could become significant for the future of coffee sellers because they give instant exposure, greater visibility and allow consumers to try something before buying. But then, they are also cost-intensive, which would be difficult for the newbie entrepreneurs who work on tight budgets.
At Di Bella, a coffee chain, the air is filled with the pungent, burnt smell of brew as Ross sets up work meetings on a regular weekday afternoon. Expensive, sophisticated machines gurgle in the background, while a few customers line up at this mini outlet inside a large retail store in Bandra, Mumbai. It’s still the summer holidays—which means anxious parents trying to hold on to a mug while trying to restrain their agile children.
It is chains like these that Ross and the others are taking on, though it’s not yet a level playing field. Their “mass-produced, over-roasted, over-priced” brew—“coffee without spirit or characteristics,” D’Abreo says—drove these young entrepreneurs to start their own business for an alternative.
Ironically, it is chains like Di Bella, Starbucks and Café Coffee Day, among others, that have helped them in creating awareness. Chitharanjan explains how Starbucks’s entry into any market, made after careful research, timed correctly, causes the market to “explode”.
On whether cafes would help or not, on one side we have Dev, Chitharanjan and D’Abreo, and on the other we have Ross, who wants to stay in the online business.
Most people go to cafés to mingle and socialize in a sanitized ambience, maybe eat something, rather than to specifically consume coffee, he believes.
Chitharanjan says, “If you have to grow the market, and I don’t feel online coffee sales are going to take off hugely for some time, at least with cafés you can curate the experience.”
It’s something the Blue Tokai proprietor wants to try, as does D’Abreo, whose café will come up in Koramangala, Bengaluru, in a couple of months. To get the young and “upwardly mobile”, Dev is planning to open one as soon as his son, Siddhant Keshav, returns from his training in Vienna as a barista.
Is coffee sexier?
Coffee remains a more frequently used conversation starter than tea. You are more likely to hear someone say “let’s have coffee” than “let’s have tea”. It’s sexier, probably because of caffeine’s addictive nature and because of reported health hazards, which makes it evil and therefore more desirable.
It’s aspirational, Ross says, because there is an element of snob value attached. “These are people who are romanced by the idea of being able to brew their own and be proud of it,” says D’Abreo over the phone.
There is more of a process to making coffee at home, with or without an electrical gadget, (unless it’s instant coffee, or unless you are Tamil, with faith in stainless steel) than there is to tea, giving it an added mystique.
“It’s a richness of drinking experience, that hugging sort of aroma that coffee gives you…” says D’Abreo. “There can not be that richness in a cup of tea. It does not smell the house.”
The new breed are focused on freshness and their beans are roasted two or three times in a week, so that the bag of beans or powder you get at home has not been roasted more than a few days ago. Since coffee loses a part of its mojo in about two weeks, this becomes their calling card.
Speed of delivery is the next big step, because “if it takes five days to get you, it leaves a sour taste in people’s mouth”, says Chitharanjan.
Most of these “third-wave” coffee sellers consider education and awareness as among their responsibilities, which shows on their websites, with links to information on how to brew, gadgets to buy, etc. The Flying Squirrel sells brewing equipment and coffee kits; Blue Tokai retails grinders. They present fascinating histories of the evolution and trade of coffee, of sustainability and ethical practices.
In the end, there is also fierce ambition. “We want to be the Blue Bottle of India,” says D’Abreo.
To tea or not to tea
For Chaayos founder Nitin Saluja, the logic is really simple: Indians drink tea, so the business idea is in tea. Ahead of the opening of Chaayos’s 23rd branch in Powai, close to the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, which makes it part nostalgic and part redemptive for the former student, Saluja debunks the theory that coffee is more alluring than tea.
He puts his money where his mouth is: the nearly four-year-old company has opened 18 stores in the space of a year, all in New Delhi and Mumbai—a breakneck pace. They have a 1-800 telephone number, a busy website and an app.
He explains why this business makes sense. “We are a country of chai drinkers. We have been consuming it forever. It’s a 30:1 in ratio to coffee. It was a no-brainer.”
Saluja says customers do not visit cafés for coffee, but for the ambience. “I don’t think coffee is any sexier. I think the ambience is sexy. Being a tea-drinking nation, we are not able to understand the nuances of coffee. It’s something cultural, if you were to think that it would grow over a period of time, it will take a long time. Tea can provide the notes that’s sexy.”
Chaayos is among few specialized outlets for tea, at least in Mumbai. The Taj Mahal Tea House at an old, refurbished bungalow in Bandra and Tea Trails in Fort are among the others, besides one-off stores like San-Cha. As Chaayos continues to expand and other forces start working, like Chado, tea will grow way beyond the roadside stall or tapri format. But it hasn’t been driving new conversations the way coffee has.
There’s much consolidation to happen in the coming years in the coffee business. Chitharanjan says their working capital requirement is exceeding the money they generate because they need to buy their entire year’s supply at once.
Shipping is a nightmare, he adds. He is concerned about plantations, because there is a narrow band across the world where coffee is grown and temperatures are rising. So, growers have to go higher and higher in altitude to discover new areas for growing coffee.
It’s the reason why Black Baza founder Arshiya Bose’s focus is on conservation of forests, wildlife and water, and on how growers deal with climate change.
Ross names logistics and getting a national wholesale partner as his challenges.
What brews in the future remains intriguing, but like Indian wine was more than a decade ago, Indian coffee is poised at an interesting juncture. Though alcohol has “other things to go with it”, the parallels are easy to draw: there’s discovery, there’s history and there a few brave warriors trying to blend the two.
“Sit down, enjoy, smell and taste the different things we have put in an effort to create, but unlike wine, don’t drink for the high,” says D’Abreo. “It offers much more than the effect of alcohol. There is so much more to coffee… fruitiness, sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, the smell of wet earth, blueberry, strawberry…”
“It evokes all five sensory systems,” elaborates Nagaraj. “It is more than just a beverage. It’s a state of mind.”
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com
source: http://www.mintonsunday.livemint.com / Livemint.com / Home> Big Story / by Arun Janardhanan / Sunday – June 19th, 2016
India’s coffee output in the next crop year is expected to drop by around a quarter to the lowest in nearly two decades as poor rains and hot temperatures hit plantations during the crucial flowering stage, the head of an industry body said.
India is the world’s sixth-biggest coffee producer, well behind leaders Brazil and Vietnam.
Nonetheless, lower production from India could provide more support to global prices, already surging due to a drop in the output in top producer Brazil.
“Dry weather is hitting plantations in the crucial flowering stage. On a conservative basis, we are estimating a 25 percent drop in production,” Baba P. S. Bedi, chairman of the Karnataka Planters Association (KPA) told news agency Reuters.
Karnataka accounts for about 70 percent of India’s total output. India is likely to produce 350,000 tonnes coffee in the current season ending on September 30, according to estimates by the state-run Coffee Board.
With a 25 percent reduction in Karnataka, production could drop to 263,000 tonnes in the 2016/17 crop year, the lowest since 1998/99.
The Coffee Board is expected to provide its first production forecasts for 2016/17 by mid-June, said D R Babu Reddy, an agricultural economist at the Board.
India, which started coffee cultivation in 1670 with seven smuggled beans, produces mainly robusta, used primarily in instant coffee.
“Due to the back-to-back droughts, ground water has been depleted,” said Bedi, pointing to lower rainfall since the start of March on top of drought last year.
Coffee growing regions in southern India received up to 70 percent lower rainfall than normal from March to mid-May, according to the India Meteorological Department.
Higher than normal summer temperatures alongside water scarcity had badly impacted the conversion of coffee flowers into cherries, said Anil Kumar Bhandari, a large planter.
India exports three-quarters of its coffee production and production problems will dent shipments in 2016/17, said an exporter based in Bengaluru.
“This year, exporters are aggressively selling due to a recovery in global prices. Next year we will have very limited carry forward stocks,” the exporter said.
Italy, Germany and Belgium are the main buyers of India’s crop, paying a premium over global prices.
India’s coffee exports have risen 19.4 percent to 213,187 tonnes since the start of current marketing year on October 1.
Rich brew:A tribal woman serving cold coffee at the Coffee Museum at Araku in the Agency area of Visakhapatnam district. Photo: K.R. Deepak
Flavours from all over the world tingle taste buds at museum in Araku
Wish to relish freshly brewed Araku Coffee where it is grown? The Coffee Museum at Araku is the place to be. It’s no surprise that coffee connoisseurs drive down all the way from Vizag city, 120 km away, just to relish its rich taste!
Come ‘Aashadam’ (the month when traditionally newly married bride and her mother-in-law are not allowed to stay under the same roof) young couples come in droves to the museum to spend the day exchanging sweet nothings.
The museum had been catering to discerning palates for over six decades now, say its organisers. The buzz around ‘Araku Coffee’ has been growing after it bagged awards at international competitions during the last few years. Araku Coffee once again grabbed headlines when it tickled the taste buds of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the International Fleet Review (IFR) in Visakhapatnam.
Located right behind the Tribal Museum here, the Coffee Museum provides a wide array of coffee flavours from different parts of the globe. At first glance, visitors and tourists may dismiss it as just another museum to promote coffee consumption. They are sure to be bowled over by the rich aroma, the taste of a wide range of freshly brewed coffee varieties.
The coffee-based confectionaries are sure to leave a lingering taste of coffee in one’s mouth.
One can visualise the journey of coffee down the ages through the dioramas, photographs, and charts from ancient literature as they relish the piping hot coffee along with coffee-based snacks. Video and audio presentations on the subject add pep to the scenario.
Coffee chocolates in different flavours, concept-based chocolates with a mix of various spices, chocolate truffles, chocolate-covered coffee beans, liquid coffee-filling chocolates and baked coffee snacks can be had in the concept-based ‘Gourmet Coffee House’ section.
“We use high-quality local ingredients with international formula,” says A.S. Prakasa Rao, one of the organisers of the museum.
History of coffee
Can you hazard a guess as to who discovered coffee? You might not have, perhaps, imagined even in your wildest of dreams that coffee beans were first discovered (eaten) by goats in Ethiopia in the 7th Century AD.
A shepherd became curious on seeing his goats becoming hyperactive after eating the berries of wild plants on the hill slopes. At first he thought that they must have gone crazy. But, after observing them over a period of time, he realised there was something in the wild berries, which was giving them the kick. He carried some of the berries to the monastery and shared them with the monks. That’s how goats first discovered coffee in Ethiopia! Arab traders from Yemen carried the seeds home and were the first to cultivate the plants. The Arabs had closely guarded the secret and allowed only the roasted beans to be exported.
“Instant coffee was first introduced for Army jawans in 1901. Blended coffee (coffee/chicory mix) was introduced in 1958 only in India and France, while at other places of the world only pure coffee is used,” says Mr. Rao.
“An Indian Muslim managed to smuggle some coffee seeds and planted them at Chikmagalur in Karnataka. The Maharaja of Jeypore in Odisha was the first to introduce coffee at Araku during the 1890s. However, commercial cultivation at Araku in a big way started only during 1970s by the ITDA, Coffee Board, and AP Forest Development Corporation Limited mainly to wean away tribals from ‘podu’ (shifting) cultivation,” says Mr. Rao, who has an in-depth knowledge of various aspects of the subject.
Heritage status
The Coffee Museum at Araku is claimed to be India’s first thematic coffee museum. The museum should have acquired heritage status by now as it is being run for over six decades.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Visakhapatnam / by B. Madhu Gopal / Araku(Visakhapatnam District) – May 04th, 2016
Is the modern day coffee cultivation threatening our biodiversity? Read on to find out how you can responsibly source your favourite morning cuppa
It’s the quintessential breakfast drink, the morning elixir, the ambassador for good days and the one drink with absolute power to wake you up. Yes, our morning cuppa coffee is what we all look forward to wake us up from a slumber hangover.
But, what if we didn’t have coffee anymore? Or, if the modern day production of coffee is impacting forests and wildlife, in turn, affecting our consumption? Alarming isn’t it?
Arshiya Bose has set out on a quest to responsibly source coffee without making an imprint on our environment. She started Black Baza Coffee in an attempt to save biodiversity. Technically, coffee is grown under a marquee of trees.
But, because of deforestation, coffee is now grown under direct sunlight, giving way to monoculture which affects our biodiversity levels drastically. “After my Ph. D., I started spending time at coffee landscapes in India, mostly Coorg,” says Arshiya, a wildlife scientist.
“We found that compared to other parts of the world where forests had been clear-felled to grow coffee, India had retained forest trees and planted coffee underneath the shade of these trees. This meant that coffee farms in India have supported all kinds of beautiful biodiversity for decades. The challenge arises because, since the 1970s onwards, many farms have been removing shade trees in the hope of better coffee yields. The trade-off here is that the yields of coffee are actually higher when coffee is grown under direct sun (which is why in high coffee producing nations like Brazil, Vietnam etc., there are no shade trees). This was the problem we were trying to address. How can we make it economically viable for farmers to grow a more ecologically-friendly coffee?”
The first step involves identifying farms in places like Kodagu and B.R. hills, based on factors like potential of the farm to support biodiversity and willingness to participate in conservation projects. A conservation agreement is then drawn up with the farms that include maintaining 100 trees per acre, protection of water sources, restricting the usage of chemical pesticides and maintaining 60-80 per cent shade cover which means no cutting of tree branches.
“In 2009 I met a young scientist – Claude Garcia, a French, who spoke fairly good Tamil,” recalls Arshiya. “He told me: ‘if we can’t achieve biodiversity-friendly farming with coffee we probably can’t achieve with any other farming system either’. That sentence stuck on as I believe that coffee is the perfect crop to experiment with. Coffee gets the attention of people and then becomes a way to engage someone who previously never cared about conservation. I always say: we want to bring conservation to everybody’s breakfast table.”
Black Baza Coffee is already available at natural and health food stores, where they partner with like-minded cafes and institution who would want to serve great coffee with a story.
The bean cause – Working together for that perfect cuppa
Aesthetic packaging and cheeky questions on their cover makes Black Baza Coffee a unique product. “What does moth-friendly coffee taste like?” “What does Otter-friendly coffee taste like?” – are some of the questions you get to see on their packages. “All of our coffee varieties are a tribute to the charismatic plant and wildlife species that share the Western Ghats landscape with coffee,” says Arshiya, “For example, the Otter coffee comes from two riverside farms in Kodagu where we are protecting the Cauvery River from effluents and degradation of riverside vegetation. The Luna Moth is a magnificent indicator of ecological health as well. So while we could test our coffees in the lab for chemical residues etc. (which we do), we also go out to the farm and count Luna moths or Ficus trees or Otters because these species tell us the whole ecological picture – lab tests don’t tell us whether farms are biodiversity-friendly or not.”
Black Baza Coffee now works with 30 farmers and there are over three lakh small-medium growers in India. While Arshiya isn’t sure about the future of the model in India, she is positive and fiercely relentless about being a major coffee player that makes biodiversity-friendly coffee a household staple instead of an exception.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> MetroPlus / by Rehna Abdul Kareem / May 03rd, 2016
When Friedrich Durrenmatt once said “It is surely easier to confess a murder over a cup of coffee than in front of a jury.” he quite simply put across the magic of a good cup of brewing coffee!
Fresh, strong, steaming hot and hassle-free service are some of the words which come to your mind when you think of coffee and vending serivces, and these very words are the part of Aromas of Coorg’s philosophy.
In conversation with Abhilasha Dafria for YourStory, A.Chithra Uthappa, co-founder of Aromas of Coorg, tells us how they, at AOC, are full of fresh ideas, believe strongly in quality and customer satisfaction and have the best designed products for their customers so that they get the maximum value for their money.
Afterall, science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break!
Hi Chitra, tell us about yourself and an introduction to Aromas of Coorg
Aromas of Coorg has been in business of Beverage solutions since 2009 & coffee cultivation for more than 3 decades. Our passion is to provide the most technology driven, innovative beverage solutions to both businesses and consumers.
I, A.Chithra Uthappa, am the founder & Managing Director of Aromas of Coorg and I’m an MBA from MIT MAHE University, Manipal and B.B.M From Mysore University. I have worked with large corporates like Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aditya Birla Minacs and iSeva/e4e. All my corporate roles have been with fast growing sunrise industries and have played significant roles in building the businesses and growing the companies to the next level. In my last assignment with the start-up open2save, I was a key team member and was instrumental in setting up new business channels ground-up.
Radhakrishnan M, my co-founder & Head of Operations is a seasoned professional with over a decade’s experience in large corporate before he set-up his own company, Aromas of Coorg. He has worked with large corporate like Dell, Infosys, Manpower Inc. etc and has extensive experience in building and managing businesses including sales, building teams and organizations. He is an MBA from Loyola College, Chennai and B.Sc. from Madras University.
So what triggered this idea?
There are four important factors that made our idea into a company, ie, My husband’s passion and support for my entrepreneurship, my son, our roots from Coorg and the corporate exposure.
First and foremost, to become an entrepreneur was always the dream of my husband and me … this is what we wanted to be. I was on sabbatical for my child and during the break; I conceived the business idea too! We decided that this would be the right opportunity to start something on our own sitting at home. This is where it all started.
We are basically from Coorg and we have been into coffee cultivation for more than three decades. This was the primary driver why we chose to build something unique in this space and we thought out of the box. Having worked with corporate for more than a decade we understand this world well and we were able to quickly identify the opportunity.
Thus the birth of “Aromas of Coorg”, as we wanted our company to bear the name “Coorg” in some part and also wanted a name where our targeted customers can easily relate to it. Quite naturally the first thing that attracts anybody to any form of food is the “Aroma”. That is how we finalized on the name “Aromas of Coorg” and this also marked our entry into the beverage solutions for corporate, institutions, etc.
Since when are you operational? How big is your team? Are you looking at hiring?
We are fully operational since August 2009. We are currently a 40 member team. Yes, definitely, we are looking to strengthen our sales force and simultaneously our operational support staff will have to go hand in hand with every new client that gets added.
What is your clientele like?
We service range of clients like large corporate across multiple cities to a one location company as well. We have a well spread out client base across industries and geographies.
Where are you based and where are your clients from?
We are based in Bangalore and are currently supporting clients in Bangalore, Mysore, Tumkur, Nelamangala, Hosur and Chennai. However, we are not present in retail segment at this point of time.
Where do you have your manufacturing units? Which cities do you provide the home-delivery services?
Our manufacturing unit is also in Bangalore; currently we provide home delivery service only within Bangalore city limits.
How does the supply chain work?
We are currently able to manage the supply chain internally, our raw materials are procured from different locations and the respective vendors manage the supply chain of the respective products. All these products come to our processing units in Bangalore from where the supply of finished products to the respective clients is managed by full time employees of AOC. Machines are manufactured under our complete supervision.
Did you fund-raise to start up? If not, are you looking at getting funded now?
We used our personal money and angel money. We are looking to get funding for our future expansions.
How does the revenue module work?
We work both on variable and a fixed pricing model where clients can pay based on usage or based on usage+ a fixed monthly costs. The pricing model is designed with the motive of win-win for us and clients.
So what were the challenges you faced while starting up? Tell me about your initial hurdles.
First and foremost challenge was how to differentiate ourselves from the others; there were several big brands and more than enough small vendors. We really had to come up with a differentiator from the existing. This is the stage were we re-invented our traditional filter coffee. The wave of western form of coffee was so popular that everybody is racing towards the Cappuccino, Espresso, latte, etc.
Timing was tough; given it was the time of deep recession, all around you there were companies going under losses, almost all the corporate were planning for major cost cutting, and so on. It was also very difficult for us to penetrate the companies with our new concept and service offerings.
Of course our innovative thinking helped us make good inroads. We took this to our advantage and came up with our very own filter coffee which is truly Indian, especially south Indian, and presented to the corporate the first of its kind fully-automated Vending machines which serves authentic filter Coffee and freshly brewed Tea. In our very first Demo we knew that we hit the nail on the head with our concept.
Are there other players in the market doing similar things? What are your key differentiators?
Yes there are several big names in the market providing beverage service, Coffee day, Fresh & Honest, Tata Cafe, Hindustan lever, etc. Our USP is our focus on technology, our zeal to innovate and our relentless passion for quality. Our Vending machine is the first its kind which is fully automated to serve freshly brewed authentic filter Coffee & freshly brewed Tea on a single press of the button. We are the first company in India to build coffee vending machine with both HOT & COLD option in the same machine. We are looking at adding more features around quality assurance here.
Our Coffee is a blend of six varieties of finest coffees beans hand picked from our own cultivation and we apply expert science, combined with traditional artistry, in order to maximize the flavor attributes of each roast. Our coffee roasting process is tuned to develop coffee flavors to the fullest for flavor profile, aroma and overall character in the cup. These factors make us the pioneers and front runners in providing the most hygienic and finest Coffee but at the same time affordable vending service provider in the market today.
Can you share with us some interesting trends about the market that you are trying to capture?
The market is looking for continuous innovation and personalization as much as possible.
An interesting trend is enhanced customer awareness and focus on health drinks like badam milk, green tea, milk shakes, horlicks etc. In some clients these new drinks are consumed lot more than traditional tea and coffee.
What are the challenges of scale in this business and how do you prepare to cope with them?
The biggest challenge in scaling is to maintain the same levels of service and quality. This is B2B2C market and end consumers decide what they finally like to drink. Having a continuous feedback loop and connection with end consumers is another critical aspect of this business.
Where and how do you see yourself going ‘bout this?
We aim to build our company to PAN India multi format Beverage Company. To serve 1 lacs cups a day is our immediate 12 months target.
For more information, please visit their website: http://aromasofcoorg.com/
– Abhilasha Dafria
source: http://www.yourstory.com / Your Story.com / Home> Entrepreneur / Team YS / by Abhilasha Dafria / December 30th, 2011
Coffee is cool, and Indian coffee is cooler still. That’s the message a brave new breed of young coffee growers are taking to the world.
Youngsters with a family background in coffee, they are taking their products to the next level – incorporating quality produce with sustainable agriculture and state-of-theart production techniques and marketing. To them, the customer is king – and they are pleased to customise their coffees, reach out to educate and grow their customer base. Their final desired outcome is to make Indian coffee a thing of beauty at home and abroad. Meet some of the players.
Rishwin Devaya | 26 Riverside Coffee, Coorg
“A planter’s approach is usually to just maximise yield, but I am experimenting to control the end quality. I want to add value to Coorg coffee;I’m in it for the long run”
It was while Rishwin Devaya was working for a wine company that he realised he wanted to return to his roots to create a brand of world-class coffee from Riverside, his own 80-acre coffee estate in Siddapur, Coorg, along the Cauvery river. As he watched his employers go through the process of cultivating grapes, producing and selling wines, he realised he could do the same.
“My family has been growing coffee in Coorg since 1898, but we’ve always sold the beans to large-scale producers. In fact as I thought about it, I realised that very few coffee drinkers truly understand much about their preferred types of coffee (Arabica, Robusta) or different types of roasts.” He quit his job and started processing the 60 tonnes of coffee grown in his estate.
“I started sending out samples on a small scale to restaurants in Bangalore last year. I want my own strong brand, and to focus on customising coffee, so different restaurants get their own individual blends.” Devaya’s single origin coffee is UTZ and Wood certified, and has been launched in custom- designed tins in three variants – a 100 per cent Arabica, a 50/50 Arabica/ Robusta and the popular filter coffee blend which incorporates chicory.
“From April onwards, my coffee will be available on my website, besides gourmet stores. For my next phase I plan to offer blends and grinds according to customer requests — the ultimate customised coffee. What I love about coffee is that each person has his own way of enjoying it. I want people to understand how simple it is to make a really good cup.” Devaya recently launched Riverside Coffee with a tasting event at Red Fork, where he demonstrated different coffee-drinking styles for guests, a kind of show-and-tell on coffee.
This covered the entire production process, from picking the ripe ‘cherry’, to the pulping and washing stage, to getting the ‘parchment’, followed by hulling and polishing to get the green bean and finally grading (AA, A, B or peaberry, while BBB – blacks, browns and bits – are usually sold in bulk to make instant coffee.) “A planter’s approach is usually to just maximise yield, but I’m experimenting to control the end quality. I want to add value to Coorg coffee; I’m in it for the long run.”www.riversidecoffee.in
Tejini Kariappa | 28 Halli Berri Coffee, Chikmagalur
“We sold our coffee in handwritten aluminium foil packets to start with. Then the name was suggested by my sister and my mother liked it, saying, ‘We should be proudly Coorg.”
Tejini Kariappa’s idea of creating her coffee brand Halli Berri happened because “we were giving away too much free coffee,” she says. Her family-run coffee enterprise is based in Chikmagalur and is headed by her mother and herself — India’s first all-women run coffee business.
Her estate, Kambihalli, in the foothills of Chikmagalur’s Bababudan hills, has been in the family for generations, with Kariappa also running a PR firm, Estrada, in Mumbai. Halli means village in Kannada, and when juxtaposed with ‘berry’ makes the name sound ethnic, meaning ‘the village berry.’ Halli Berri grew almost organically, as visitors at the estate café run by her mother started asking for fresh-ground coffee powder to buy and take home.
Kariappa explains, “We sold our coffee in handwritten aluminium foil packets to start with. Then the name was suggested by my sister and my mother liked it. ‘We should be proudly Coorg,’ she said.” So Halli Berri was born and now remains a frontrunner in India’s single-origin coffee story. Today Kariappa sells a single variant full-bodied 100 per cent Arabica coffee made from premium graded beans under the Halli Berri brand. She prices it affordably, “in fact not much more than instant coffee,” she points out.
The brand is Rainforest Alliance certified, one of the highest certifications worldwide. She also runs a CSR initiative, ‘Be Berri Conscious’ tied in with her coffee business – it is mandatory for all her workers to send their children to school, and families are given free meals. Halli Berri also supports wildlife initiatives — tiger conservation and 296 species of migratory birds in the estate. “I want this to be a legacy for my children and their children,” she says. The estate also offers a responsible luxury’ homestay experience.
Juggling two different lifestyles has been tough, more so given the innumerable subsidies, certification and licences a business needs for survival.But Kariappa finds the journey “interesting… Indian coffee must get its due recognition. And the youth in India should realise that Indian coffee is cool. This (coffee) has really been my life from the start – so you could say I’m trying to start a revolution.” halliberri.com
________________________________________________________________
EXPERT SPEAK
“Indian single estate coffee is an idea whose time has come. The growth of India’s coffee story has been generational. Earlier generations saw coffee as a commodity, pooled to sell so there was no individual identity. For today’s new generation, whom I call ‘marketpreneurs’, marketing is important. They are more passionate in their approach.
It’s not about production alone now — there are value adds, customised blends, quality packaging, niche brands with back stories happening along with the additional benefit of e-commerce. This is excellent.
However, the new generation must be aware of a few factors. They must not ape the biggies — the Tata Coffees or Unilevers — but focus on the ‘small is beautiful’ dictum. They must also concentrate on physical distribution of their product, not only the virtual via e-commerce. And they need to focus on quality, not get overwhelmed by only branding.
Finally, customisation divides markets into choice segments: do this with scale in mind, don’t create nano-niches which are unsustainable by themselves. This is the way ahead to lift Indian coffee to world recognition”
“India is the sixth largest coffee producer in the world, but two-thirds of our coffee is exported to Europe, where the beans are roasted and sold; no one knows that’s Indian coffee”
Civil engineers by profession, the Shetty brothers, joint managing directors at Seven Beans Coffee Company, realised early on that their heart lay in producing the best coffees sourced from their five estates in Chikmagalur (their premium estate Woddaegudda is 450 acres and Rainforest Alliance certified). “We grew up spending summers on the estate — here coffee was grown but sold to coffee houses to process and sell,” says Advith, who handles sales.
They decided to leverage their engineering skills to develop their business, raising the bar through research and export. “India is the sixth largest coffee producer in the world, but two thirds of our coffee is exported to Europe, where the beans are roasted and sold under different international brand names. There, they command exorbitant prices, except no one knows that’s Indian coffee,” says Abhijit, who looks after production and operations, adding that they wanted to create a globally recognised brand. They incorporated Seven Beans Coffee in 2013, a complete bean-to-cup enterprise, and started the search for a global partner.
They zeroed in on Dr Dante Cagliari, a noted Italian master roaster, and the association recognises Seven Beans for a unique USP in the custom- made single estate coffee market. Seven Beans pre-blends and then roasts their coffee at their own customised Chikmagalur roastery, grinding and packaging both whole coffee beans, powder and capsules. They have begun exporting three variants under their own brand names — Mishta (70/30 Arabica/Robusta), Urja (60/40), and Eka (50/50) — and the packaging is deliberately very Indian. They also import signature Italian blends by Cagliari. Abhijit explains the historical growth of coffee, “The early 1900s saw the patenting of technology forinstant coffee. It was followed by consumers, especially those in the US, seeking better quality and asking about origin; terms like ‘fair trade’ became important. The most recent trend saw the term ‘artisanal coffee’ coined. Artisanal producers control every step of coffee production, from bean to cup.”
Seven Beans started production in 2015 and now sells its custom coffees to corporate offices and restaurants, as well as online and in gourmet stores. They offer end to end services, including renting and sale of imported Italian coffee machines. Aiming to bring the perfect cup to consumers, they offer barista training, from grinding coffee to frothing milk. “Indian consumers learn quick, want quality and are aspirational, therefore they are aware of artisanal Indian coffee,” adds Abhijit. sevenbeans.co
Meet the others
Specialised coffee brands like Flying Squirrel (flyingsquirrel.in) and Blue Tokai (bluetokaicoffee. com) have been making their presence felt among coffee lovers in India with customised coffee straight from estates in Chikmagalur and Coorg, sold online and instore. Other players include the Indian Bean Company (theindianbean. com) and Bengaluru’s Estatecraft coffee (estatecraft.in).
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Business> News / by Ruma Singh / April 25th, 2016
There’s a scene in the movie The Bucket List where Jack Nicholson’s billionaire character realises kopi luwak – the “fancy” coffee he insists on drinking – is made from the faeces of a cat-like creature.
“You’re shitting me?” he says. “Cats beat me to it,” his terminally ill mate replies. Both men laugh until tears stream down their faces and then his friend ticks: “laugh until I cry” off his bucket list.
Scatological jokes aside, there is a well-documented dark side to kopi luwak, which is also known as civet coffee.
In February, civet coffee plantation tours were ranked among the world’s top 10 cruel animal attractions by World Animal Protection.
“There is now a growing civet coffee plantation tourism industry in Indonesia where tourists visit caged civet cats and sample the coffee,” says a report by the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research. “This is causing more and more civets to be caged and abused.”
Kopi luwak is made from coffee cherries that have passed through the intestines of a common palm civet (known as a luwak in Indonesia); a small, nocturnal carnivore. The enzymes break down the beans, which when roasted, create a smooth, less bitter brew, according to some coffee connoisseurs.
(Not everyone is a fan. The Washington Post’s food critic Tim Carman wrote of his experience: “Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn’t finish it.)
World Animal Protection says that when civet droppings are collected from the wild, no cruelty is involved. Indeed the history of kopi luwak is purported to date back to the Dutch colonial era, when native coffee plantation workers were forbidden to pick coffee for their own use. They discovered undigested beans in civet droppings and created their own aromatic brew.
However in recent decades the coffee – with its irresistibly weird back story – has become a global sensation, with wild-sourced beans fetching prices of up to £2000 ($3700) a kilo.
The massive international demand and exorbitant prices led to civets being caged to increase productivity and create commercially viable quantities of civet poo.
“Caged civets are encouraged to gorge on an unbalanced diet of coffee cherries,” the World Animal Protection report says. The process has been compared to fattening geese to create foie gras but with a lot more caffeine. “Many show signs of great stress, including pacing and self-mutilation. This unnatural captivity and forced feeding results in injuries, disease and poor nutrition.”
But despite their famous faeces, little is known about the common palm civet itself, according to PhD student Peter Roberts, a lecturer in animal care in Britain. “How can we look after the species in captivity without knowing how they will behave in the wild?”
Roberts aims to collect data on the habitat use, behaviour and estimated population of civets around the village of Cipaganti in Java for the PhD he is doing at Oxford Brookes University. He hopes his research will add vital information to what is known about the ecology of the species and contribute to better animal husbandry and management policies.
However, because funding invariably goes to rare species – the civet is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a species of “least concern” – his PhD is largely self-funded. It’s been a painstaking process. A recent attempt to crowd-source 10 camera traps raised a paltry £15 in 56 days.
Meanwhile, the trade in civets is increasing dramatically in Indonesia. Civets have become a popular exotic pet in Indonesia and there has been a rise in the popularity of kopi luwak and civet coffee farms in Java and Bali.
The problem, Roberts says, is that no-one has been able to quantify what damage this trade is doing to wild populations. “More wild research is desperately needed.”
Although common palm civets are not protected in Indonesia, trade is regulated through an annual quota system. In 2016, a total of 250 common palm civets can be captured for domestic use and 225 for export from just four provinces in Indonesia.
Eko Arifyanto from the Biodiversity Conservation Agency says this is to keep the balance of the number of animals in the wild. There has not been a request for one permit this year.
However the sheer numbers of civets for sale in Javan and Balinese animal markets alone suggest this quota system is simply not being enforced. “It is difficult to know because we have very limited human resources while our coverage area is quite big,” Eko says.
When Fairfax Media visited Pasar Satria, a market in Denpasar, young civets were available for 450,000 Rupiah (about $45) each.
Author and former coffee trader Tony Wild believes he spawned a monster. Wild claims to be the first person to bring a kilogram of kopi luwak to the west in 1991, while working as a coffee director for Taylors of Harrogate. The product, with its “certain repulsive charm”, became a media sensation beyond his wildest dreams.
However two decades later, while researching his book Coffee: A Dark History, Wild learnt civets were being poached and caged all over south-east Asia and force-fed coffee cherries.
In 2013 he started the Facebook campaign Kopi Luwak: Cut the Crap. He also played a key role in a BBC investigation of animal cruelty on civet farms in Sumatra.
“I don’t think a large number of consumers have been put off by the life of the animal – kopi luwak is pretty much everywhere in Indonesia, and I think you will find probably the same in south-east Asia,” he says.
Wild does believe there is a sustainable business model in genuine wild kopi luwak.
In Gayo, for example, a famous coffee producing region at the tip of Sumatra, Anasryta has been gathering civet faeces foraged by collectors for more than 20 years. Gabah (the cleaned coffee beans) are worth 80,000 rupiah ($8) a kilogram. “You can tell the difference, which kopi luwak is from the wild and from the farm,” Anasryta says.
“The wild has a richer taste, luwak in the wild eats all kinds of stuff, skins of trees, fruits.”
However many kopi luwak producers are now savvy to the controversy around caged civets. “You will find most kopi luwak is now marketed as “genuine wild” kopi luwak,” Wild says. “There’s really only one way of telling and that is having a personal relationship with the producers and going to the plantation and even then it’s difficult to prove.”
Coffee certifiers Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified – the world’s leading label for sustainable coffee production – no longer certify coffee producers that use caged civets or other animals.
And in June 2015, Indonesia introduced standards for luwak coffee production, that emphasised the civets were not to be starved, harmed, scared or depressed.
“We welcome the Indonesian government recognising there is an issue, however if they truly wish to stop the suffering then all caged production of kopi luwak must be prohibited,” says World Animal Protection’s Joanna Toole. “There is no justification to take these animals from the wild and keep them in confinement for years on end to produce a luxury coffee for tourists.”
Bali Geo is a kopi luwak cafe in Ubud that opened several weeks ago.
The cafe has three civets on site, but the owners say they are for display only, and will eventually be released. “We buy our supplies from a luwak farm up in Kintamani,” says co-owner I. Nyoman Lanus.
“I understand they have about 70 luwak in cages. I know they keep them in good condition. One luwak per cage, so they won’t fight each other. They would only be fed coffee beans around three times a week. Luwak will die if they are only fed with coffee.”
Nyoman says the coffee cherries are placed in a bowl and the civet is allowed to pick the best. The rest are sold back to the coffee farmers.
“For anybody to claim they have a steady flow of wild luwak coffee is impossible,” Nyoman says. “A mixture of wild and luwak farm, that’s more likely. Like what we sell here.”
The story Famous faeces: the story behind the civet-poo coffee craze first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.
source: http://www.esperanceexpress.com / The Esperance Express / Home> News> Latest News / April 15th, 2016
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