The Coffee Cafe Culture: Growth And Challenges

- Swarnendu Biswas

There is no denying the fact that the change in lifestyles in urban India has given a fillip to the coffee café culture in the country. The changes in lifestyles in turn can be attributed to the growing influence of globalisation among significant sections of urban India — this influence is not only limited to the metros of India but has percolated to the tier-II and tier-III cities of the country – and also due to the fact that significant sections of urban India, which is having more and more nuclear families, do not have the time to cook elaborate meals at home.

They wouldn’t mind having a lunch of a snack and a coffee at one of the mushrooming coffee cafes to save on lunch time, provided the coffee cafes position themselves wisely. The increase in disposable incomes in select but sizeable pockets of urban India since the last decade-and-a-half and significant increase in coffee consumption in the country as compared to that of the last decade has also perhaps contributed to giving momentum to this continuing trend.

Today cafés of important coffee café and bakery café chains operating in the country have emerged as hubs for students and corporates alike. These sleek places are being viewed as ideal havens by many for romantic rendezvous and as well as for business parleys.

According to TechSci Research’s report titled ‘India Coffee Shops / Cafés Market Forecast, Consumer Survey and Opportunities, 2021’, coffee shops /cafés market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 11 percent during 2016-2021, on account of the growing coffee culture among young population, increasing urbanisation, rising disposable income levels and changing eating and drinking preferences of consumers