Opening Your First Café? Now for the Big Question: What Coffee Do You Use?

Written by Tiny Tiger Coffee

You've found the place. You've signed the lease, put in the money and settled on a name. The menu boards are painted, the cups have your logo on them and the espresso machine is sitting on the counter, still wrapped in plastic.

And now comes the question that every regular will judge you on, every single morning: what coffee do you actually use?

Let's walk through it the way we would with you, standing at your own counter.

First, picture what your customers will order

In India, most of your orders will be cappuccinos, lattes and cold coffees.

That changes how you should choose. A coffee that tastes thrilling as a shot can vanish under steamed milk:

• Bright, fruity, floral coffees often win at a tasting, then go quiet or slightly sour in milk, because milk's fat and sweetness cover up acidity.
• Deeper, sweeter coffees get better in milk. Look for caramel, milk chocolate, cocoa, toasted nuts and brown sugar. Coffees roasted medium-dark usually carry these best.

So the first rule is simple: taste every candidate in a cappuccino as well as an espresso, not just as an espresso.

Arabica, or a little robusta?

100% arabica is lighter, sweeter and more fruity. It makes the better black coffee and pour-over.

A little robusta helps milk drinks in three ways:

• Body, so the coffee doesn't taste thin under milk.
• Crema that is thicker and lasts longer, which matters for latte art.
• Sweetness that reads as chocolate and caramel in milk.

Café blends in India commonly run from 70/30 to 90/10 arabica to robusta. Our Caramel Espresso and Cookie Bandit are both 100% arabica, and Toasted Almond and Velvet Mocha are made for milk-based drinks. Our post on wholesale coffee prices covers what the robusta share does to the cost per kilo.

Don't forget the milk

A 180 ml cappuccino has about 36 g of espresso and well over 100 ml of milk, so your customer is mostly tasting milk.

• Use full cream milk (around 6% fat). It steams into glossy, silky foam that holds latte art and tastes sweeter.
• Skip toned milk (around 3% fat). The foam is stiffer and collapses sooner, and it saves only a couple of rupees a cup.
• Steam to 55 to 65°C, start every jug with fresh cold milk, and stick to one dairy.

Our guide to the best milk for café coffee in India compares the main brands and their cost per cup.

Check the grinder before you blame the coffee

If you haven't bought your grinder yet, give it as much budget as the machine. The grinder decides how evenly the coffee extracts, and an uneven grind tastes bad on any machine.

Commercial grinders in India cost roughly ₹40,000 to well over ₹1 lakh. Add a shot scale for about ₹1,500, so your baristas can weigh every dose and every shot. Our post on dialling in espresso grind size goes through the morning routine.

Hold a tasting a month before you open

Here is how to make the decision itself:

1. Order two to four freshly roasted coffees about a month before opening.
2. Let them rest for 10 days after their roast date.
3. Pull them on your own grinder and machine, with the milk you'll actually serve.
4. Taste them blind, as espressos and in cappuccinos.
5. Pick the one you'd happily drink every day.

Start from this recipe for a double shot:

Once you've chosen, leave the recipe alone for at least your first three months. If shots start tasting wrong, our post on why café espresso tastes bitter or sour has the order to check things in.

Then work out how much to order

Plan on 18 g per drink plus about 10% for dialling in and discarded shots, ordered weekly.

Keep another 2 to 3 kg for barista training in the week before you open, and time your first delivery so the beans are about 10 days past their roast date on opening day. Our posts on choosing a coffee supplier and what a cup of coffee really costs a café help you compare quotes with your own numbers.

How we help new cafés

We grow, process and roast all our coffee ourselves at Hoysala Estate in Chikmagalur, Karnataka, roasting only after you order. Café pricing starts from ₹1,200/kg with a 5 kg minimum. To run the tasting above on your own machine, you can order a paid Café Sampler: two, three or four of our café coffees, 250 g of whole beans each, roasted just for you.

If you want to become a B2B partner of Tiny Tiger, order a Café Sampler and tell us about your café.

Common questions

Do I need a water softener for a café espresso machine?

Usually, yes, because hard water causes limescale that can damage the machine. Plain RO is too soft, so use remineralised RO or a softening cartridge made for espresso machines.

How long do coffee beans stay fresh in a café?

Let beans rest for about 10 days after roasting first. After that, a medium or medium-dark roast kept sealed on a cool shelf stays good for 60 to 70 days.