Two months into the pandemic, Siddharth Kakkar was getting desperate for his daily caffeine fix. The 31-year-old, who works with a global consultancy group, was used to getting his mid-morning coffee buzz from the Starbucks at Gurugram’s Cyber Hub, where he works.
“When we first started working from home, we all thought it was for only a little while, so I made do with instant coffee. As the weeks stretched into months, I could no longer just make do,” he says, going on to describe how, after much research, he found and purchased “an awesome dark-roast blend from Blue Tokai”, a coffee bean grinder and French Press.
His story has become quite the usual one as Delhi’s denizens have to become their own baristas and cater to their caffeine cravings in their own kitchens in the pandemic. “We are all aware of the tremendous growth amongst all consumers of cooking at home, sharing recipes and the like.
The same trend is visible in the coffee brewing space, with coffee lovers missing going to their favourite café and finding ways to brew coffee at home. Evolved coffee brewers, who had not considered buying coffee equipment, are now inquiring about premium Italian home espresso machines and grinders to set-up a coffee brew bar,” says Abhinav Mathur, CEO of Something’s Brewing, while noting, “It is interesting that cafés are mostly closed or operating at limited capacity, but coffee consumption as per some recent surveys has not come down. The market has shifted considerably towards home brewing.”
Somethings Brewing provides all coffee lovers with a digital platform, where they can learn more about coffee brewing, compare brewing methods, share recipes and even buy from a selection of more than 100 different brewing products.
“We launched the portal somethingsbrewing.in on Oct 1, International Coffee Day, and are proud to report that we saw close to 500 consumers shop on our portal during the first month itself. This gives us a lot of encouragement as we expand into newer product lines around coffee and reach out to the wider coffee loving audience in India,” elaborates Mathur, while adding, “India is still at a very early stage as far as the popularity of gourmet or specialty coffee is concerned. We are one of the last markets where instant coffee remains popular, even more than brewed filter coffee. This trend is slowly shifting, at least in metros, like Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.” Jai Ganesh Ramnath, MD, of the India arm of Lavazza, agrees, saying, “The biggest markets for gourmet coffees in the home segment have become Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. The southern metros of Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad have always had a tradition of filter coffees, and their availability and the relative ease of brewing have in a way made their adaption easier with the new adapters. In the other metros, we have seen tremendous interest in brewing equipment, like the Moka Pot and the French Press and in home coffee machines, that work with coffee beans, powder or capsules.”
According to Ramnath, in the pandemic, Lavazza saw an increasing interest among office goers in learning the basics of coffee and brewing techniques.
“New developments like the Cold Brew, have been on the list of coffee lovers in India. There has been a significant shift in consumer interest towards the various grades of coffee and in the roasting profiles. Gourmet coffees, especially in terms of the plantations and their provenance, are finding a place in the homes of the discerning,” he concludes.
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Somethings Brewing provides all coffee lovers with a digital platform to learn about coffee brewing, compare methods, share recipes and buy from over 100 different brewing products