'Coffee is Not Just a Beverage, It is a Culture!' - Says Founders, Baba’s Beans

BW Disrupt covers the Unique charms of brewing coffee with blending experts Mrinal Sharma and Sadhvi Ashwani. Founders of Baba’s Beans, sourcing regional coffee flavors for the Delhiwallahs since in 2013.

Mrinal Sharma shares her experience in the brewing business in an exclusive interview with Soumya Gupta.

1. Early 20’s is the most exciting phase of life, how did you two agree upon doing Baba’s beans?

• Starting out early has had its own advantages for us. Despite knowing nothing and having no experience up our sleeves to enter the industry, we mustered up all the courage and passion to take the plunge into trading a crop that fascinated us beyond belief. Essentially speaking, we were two young avid readers with free thinking yet impressionable minds with a fiery desire to make a dent in the bigger scheme of things. Baba's Beans is the point of intersection of our mutual love for coffee and the drive to make Indian coffees an essential ingredient for the domestic consumer

2. How did your tasteful results reach the right kind of coffee-lovers?

• We stepped into the industry with raw practical knowledge and a thirst to know more. A tenacious pursuit of this knowledge has unveiled to us, the world of Indian coffees as a realm of infinite possibilities. Compelling us to expand our minds and refine our palates to be able to craft and deliver coffee blends that instantly found a sound market and audience. Our coffee has reached the Delhi consumer via a number of cafes and restaurants across the town including renowned names in the food and beverage industry like south Indian food chain; Sagar Ratna and Eatopia, India Habitat Centre among many others.

• Very soon we are going to be available for home brewers through our own website and various other affiliate portals. However for us, there is no right kind of coffee lover, there is coffee and there are palates! Palates that our coffees are crafted to seduce.

3. Share the milestone or highlights of your startup with us?

• As a brand we believe in 'Meeting Palates' . On the one hand we customize coffee blends to meet our customer's budget and flavour by understanding their palate and creating a product that matches their requirement and satisfaction levels. Where on the other hand we are always in search for more diverse palates to match for it gives us great pleasure to be able to tailor make stimulation for coffee lovers in their cup. Having entered the market in December 2013, we have established our B2B side of the business (which includes supplying coffee to Cafes and restaurants across Delhi Ncr, Coffee caterings and Coffee kiosks) and are now incessantly working towards catering to the direct consumer.

4. What is your supplier- chain like for acquiring special coffee- beans?

• Indian soil is well endowed to birth brilliance. Our vision is to optimize the agricultural potential of coffee as a crop for our domestic consumer. From being region specific to estate specific, our coffees are exquisitely selected from the best coffee growing regions of India. Our Current selections are sourced from High Elevation lush coffee estates of Coorg & Chikmagalur, Karnataka.

Handpicked for the nuances they reveal to us upon being roasted to perfection, highlighting the personalities of the bean in the cup. It may not be jazz, but it most certainly is a quartet when the acidity, body, flavour and aroma of our coffees orchestrate a symphony for your senses.

5. How do you manage funds? Did brewing ring a bell with any investors?

• Up until now we have been bootstrapping our operations, however moving forward we most certainly will reach out to investors to enable some of our mouth-watering innovations to become commercially accessible for coffee consumers out there.

6. What would you like to say about the feedback from the Dilliwallahs?

• We have come to understand that a good portion of Delhi's consumer market has a well developed palate and especially Delhi-ites being deep-dyed foodies always thrive on new experiences in the culinary world. Over the course of our journey we have been able to please every palate our coffees have conversed with. When the passion and love with which we craft our coffees reaches the consumer through the cup, it comes right back to us.

7. Whom do you consider as your competitors in the business of serving the right blends and coffee-roasting?

• As young entrepreneurs hailing from an agrarian economy with a vision to trade one of the finest crops grown in the country, we see wide spread patches of blue ocean market for us to be able to significantly dent the current consumer potential. Our value chain is designed on the imperative of delivering a quality lifestyle product impregnated with finesse in flavor and an adventure in the cup.

8. Share an incident from your memory lane that encourages you to think big about this business of brown nectar?

• If we were to pin point one memory that could qualify as an experience that drives us to dream big till date, it would have to be our very first hands-on experience at roasting the humble bean. The chemistry of the few minutes inside the roaster and the roast master's assiduity and attention to detail after feeding the roaster raw potential in the form of green beans ignites unimaginable possibilities in the cup. This playing field of flavors is one which we look to extend to coffee lovers, customized even for the home consumer. Tailor making stimulation in the cup across the nation, one person at a time.

9. What do you have in mind regarding customer-engagement or marketing strategies?

• Our goals will be closer to being met when we will successfully be able to break the mythical perceptions of coffee being a luxury product and incept through our craft, the discovery of the royal bean in its multi-faceted characters. For we are a brand for the masses, we believe that Indian coffees are as diverse or as articulate as the consumer may like it to be.

• Apart from public coffee tasting sessions, coffee pop-ups and food pairing with this meticulous beverage we are soon going to introduce our personalized discovery sessions called "know your palate", a chance for coffee enthusiasts to indulge in a rendezvous with their own palates to understand the nuances of Indian coffees with us on our journey to know the formidable bean.