EP20: Coffee, Cafes and the Third Wave {Matt Chitharanjan, Co-founder of Blue Tokai Coffee}

With Episode 20, we’re ending week 10 on the podcast with the story of a popular coffee shop and coffee company that has seen demand for premium Indian coffee grow and capture the mind space of Indians looking to consume GOOD coffee.

With that they have also seen competition rise and their cafe business gain popularity . On the episode I chat about their 8 year journey and the business of coffee with Matt Chitharanjan, who along with his coffee co-founder and wife Namrata have made premium Indian coffee accessible to Indians.

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→ Don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox!

→ We also have a coffee giveaway as we’re on EP20! All you have to do is sign up the Newsletter & tag me & the Podcast on social media of your choice, Linkedin / Instagram/FB wherever! Just these 2 things for you to win a bag of coffee from BlueTokaiCoffee! And possibly a Zoom chat with Matt!

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Blue Tokai has helped a lot of Indians re-discover coffee in a very different way. The commercial success of BTC has been the inspiration for a lot of smaller roasters to set up shop in the last few years. Also gave a lot of the Indian coffee estates the satisfaction that their coffees are being appreciated by fellow Indians.

We talk about the artisanal coffee wave, the influence of food delivery apps, barista training, working with local coffee estates and ambitions for BlueTokai! Blue Tokai has now grown from a single roastery & cafe and e-commerce venture in 2013 to multiple cafes in Delh NCR, Jaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru with the goal of having 100 stores post COVID. Have a listen.

They have raised capital from some forward thinking investors such as Snow Leopard Technology Ventures, BOLD Ventures & 8i Ventures.

Don’t forget to part-take in our giveaway!

— V (Varun Vummidi)

Listen to Episodes on Apple Podcast | Google Podcast | Spotify | Stitcher

Timeline:

01.26 — The Situation

02.41 — Third wave of coffee/starting of BlueTokai

05.53 — Educating Indians about coffee

07.45 — Biggest shift in mindset/trend

08.44 — Customers of BTC

11.30 — Customised coffee at the store

11.21 — Ready to Drink as a response to instant coffee

17.00 — Product development and market share

19.14 — Importance of stores

22.22 — Working with estates

24.40 — Amount of coffee sold monthly

26.41 — New styles of coffee

30.40 — Maintaining consistency

31.51 — Different roasters in the market

33.05 — What is BlueTokai today

35.57 — Effect of home deliveries on online market

38.08 — Training the staff

41.57 — Effects of covid19

46.01 — Owning a farm

47.04 — BlueTokai global