Artisanal coffee in ‘kaapi’ land

It took them several years after opening their first outlet in 2015 (in Saket, New Delhi), to go to Bengaluru, the capital of the state most of their coffee is sourced from, but Blue Tokai, the farm-to-cup coffee brand, has finally opened two new cafés in the city.

The flagship outlet in Koramangala is their biggest yet, says Apurva Ghoshal, community manager, Blue Tokai. “The café features a kitchen you can look into, a bakery in partnership with Sourhouse where you can drop by and see sourdough being baked and kefir being made, a play bar where you can experiment with our coffees and equipment, as well as an upcoming roastery," she says. The menu includes a variety of vegan and gluten-free options and there are plans to host events such as illustration workshops, urban gardening workshops, brewing classes and cooking workshops. While the Koramangala café, in a bungalow with a cool outdoor seating, started operations in December, the second one opened at VR Bengaluru mall in Whitefield in January. Two more cafés are planned in the next few months.

The café has an extensive food menu. 

On why Bengaluru had to wait so long for a Blue Tokai café, Ghoshal says the it was a question of timing for the brand: “Our first roasteries were set up in Delhi and Mumbai because we felt that these locations needed more options and varieties in regard to their coffee culture, which was more instant-coffee based as opposed to the south, where kaapi culture had always thrived." The brand and its founders, New Delhi-based Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana, believe there is a growing market for single-origin, freshly roasted and brewed coffee in India and consumers increasingly care about where their coffee comes from—the so-called Third Wave of coffee is strong here too.