There’s a little coffee in all our lives

On the contrary, there is a God lurking somewhere in every berry of a coffee bean. An impish God. A happening God even.

There's a little coffee in all our lives

"There is a Devil in every berry of the grape"
u2014The Talmud

On the contrary, there is a God lurking somewhere in every berry of a coffee bean. An impish God. A happening God even.

The cafu00e9 at the street-corner has happened in our lives in a big way, and everyone is talking about the rise of coffee culture in India. Even as I write, there are au00a0 total of 1547 cafu00e9s in this country of one billion plus.

May their tribe grow. For every 100 Cafes added to the current population of cafu00e9 we will add an additional volume of 200 tonnes of coffee consumption. Remember, our current crop stands at 3,00,600 tonnes! We need a total ofu00a0 37,000 plusu00a0 cafu00e9s in our country to house even 25 per cent of our total produce.

Let me take a quick journey then into how coffee culture really shaped up in our country.

The first cafu00e9s made an appearance in small cubbyhole locations in and around our village markets. The enterprising young man of the day, some hundred years ago, decided to set up a stove, a big vessel of sorts and a cloth filter. The guy offered piping hot cups of coffee. Business boomed and the shelter-less cafu00e9 of yore morphed into a sheltered permanent fixture that offered coffee sustenance to scores of villagers.

The temporary cafu00e9 then grew into a Hot Coffee Shop where customers sat around in huddles and made conversation either at the beginning or the end of a long trading day. Foods entered the repertoire. Dry foods and snacks first, followed by hard buns, banana chips, onion 'pakodas', and then by idli, vada and upma. And then it happened! The alternative hot brew tea entered as well!

With the entry of tea and all the other sundry food items, the very identity of the early coffee shop kept diluting over the years. South India today has a whole host of these that go by the identity of Hot Tea Shops instead of the early coffee tagged outlets!

The cafu00e9 of today is happening at an altogether different level of appeal and panders to the wellu2013heeled and those aspiring to wear those high heels as well!

The cafu00e9 of today is happening at an altogether different level of appeal and target segment. It panders to the well heeled and those aspiring to wear those high heels as well!

Look at the offerings on display! Excellently lit corner locations, with wide open glass windows which lure customers with the sight of a whole bunch of people in a cosy setting enjoying a piping hot cup or a tall cold one. Imagine a cold winter day in Delhi. You walk past a Barista and catch the sight of a snug young set playing Pictionary with cups of the piping hot dark brew! No better publicity required!

The cafu00e9 is getting ubiquitous in its presence across our metros. A great cup of coffee is at last an arms length away! We now need a hot cup a desire's length away as well! More will happen.

A lot will! Inshallah!