When Starbucks opened its first coffeehouse in Chennai last month, its 50th in India, many people wondered why the chain had waited so long to come to the city. Was it because it was summoning up courage to enter the land of filter coffee?
The US chain, which has entered India in partnership with the Tata group, opened its first outlet in Mumbai in October 2012. But it took two years for Starbucks to come to Chennai, where it opened its first outlet in the Velachary area on July 10. It plans to open a second outlet soon, in the Alwarpet locality.
Chennai is famous for its ubiquitous filter coffee, a potent brew made in a cylindrical metal device with two compartments separated by a fine filter that allows water to percolate through a bed of coffee powder. The decoction that drips through into the bottom compartment is then mixed with milk and sugar to produce the famous Chennai filter coffee.
For now, youngsters are thronging the new Starbucks outlet, but filter coffee, brewed in most Chennai homes and available in low-cost eateries around the city, might yet prove to be formidable competition.
Starbucks’ representatives did not reply to specific queries about the chain’s prospects in Chennai. But because Starbucks is not a pioneer, it will not have to create a market for its style of coffeehouse: another chain has already done that.
Indeed, the first battle for coffee in Chennai took place a good 15 years ago, when the city got its first Western-style coffee house with Café Coffee Day‘s first outlet in Nungambakkam in 1999. Since then, the chain has grown to 74 cafés, becoming the largest in the city.
Starbucks, therefore, not only has another competitor in Café Coffee Day but also a fellow-traveller, albeit one that got an early start.
via Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture..
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