Five Café Business Models in India, and the Coffee Each One Needs

Written by Tiny Tiger Coffee

Are you opening a busy takeaway counter, a quiet specialty café, or a coffee bar inside a hotel? Each of these places serves coffee with a different appeal and at a different price point, and the coffee you buy should match it.

Most cafés in India follow one of five models:

• A takeaway kiosk
• A specialty café
• A bakery café
• A hotel or restaurant coffee program
• A delivery-first cold coffee brand

Two numbers set them apart, cups sold a day and price per cup, and those decide which coffee to buy and how much of it.

The five models side by side

The figures below are examples, not averages. Monthly coffee assumes 18 g per drink and 30 trading days.

1. The takeaway kiosk

A kiosk lives on volume, selling most of its cups in two or three short rushes near offices, metro stations or colleges.

The coffee has to taste right when shots are pulled as fast as the machine allows and milk is steamed in a hurry. A medium-dark roast with plenty of body suits this, because it holds up in milk. Side Chick, our medium-dark roast, is built for this kind of coffee setup, and Velvet Mocha, our 70/30 coffee and chicory blend, covers the filter coffee on the menu. Our post on wholesale coffee prices per kilo shows what each price works out to per cup.

2. The sit-down specialty café

A specialty café sells fewer cups at a higher price, and its customers come partly for the coffee itself. Some will order a pour-over, and a few will ask where the coffee was grown.

That gives you room to run two coffees: a milk-friendly house espresso such as Toasted Almond, or Caramel Espresso and Cookie Bandit, both 100% arabica, and a fruitier coffee for black drinks, such as Frozen Candy, a 100% arabica natural.

Two coffees means a second grinder and twice the dialling in, so start with one and add the second when customers start asking for it.

3. The bakery or food-led café

In a bakery café, coffee is often less than half of each bill, and the barista may also be plating desserts. The coffee has to taste good without constant attention at the grinder.

Pick one house coffee and resist adding more until the bar runs well. A coffee with chocolate and nut notes sits comfortably next to cakes and pastries, and it tolerates a barista who is also doing three other jobs.

Plan around the 5 kg minimum order. At 40 cups a day it lasts about a week, and even a smaller bakery that takes two or three weeks is fine, because rested coffee keeps well in a sealed bag.

4. Coffee inside a hotel or restaurant

Hotels and restaurants run a coffee program inside a bigger operation. Volume arrives in peaks, and the people making the coffee often have many other jobs.

Consistency matters most here. A guest who enjoys a cappuccino on the first morning expects the same cup on the third, whoever is on shift, so choose a forgiving coffee, put a written recipe on the machine and check the dial-in at least once a day. For the espresso machine, Caramel Espresso and Cookie Bandit are both 100% arabica options. Many Indian hotels also serve filter coffee at breakfast, and Velvet Mocha, our filter coffee, is a 70/30 blend of coffee and chicory.

5. The delivery-first cold coffee brand

Some coffee businesses have no seating at all. They sell iced lattes, cold brew and frappés through delivery apps and pay a commission on every order.

The coffee has to survive ice, milk, sugar and a 30-minute ride. A coffee with plenty of body and chocolate comes through, while a delicate, floral one mostly disappears.

Cold brew suits this model because it is made the night before and pours in seconds. We recommend Caramel Espresso or Toasted Almond, which keep their sweetness when cold. Use 1:10, which means 100 g of coarsely ground coffee to every litre of water, and steep it for 18 hours.

Tell us which model you are running

If you want to become a B2B partner of Tiny Tiger, send us your café's model, city and expected cups a day on WhatsApp, and we will suggest which café coffees to try and how often to order. You can also order a paid Café Sampler of two to four coffees to try on your own machine. Café orders ship free to metro cities within 3 working days, and take about 5 days elsewhere. Start on the Café Program page.