Life’s too short for bad coffee, so the saying goes, and Matt Chitharanjan firmly believes it. A devoted coffee lover, he spent more than a decade in the US, studying finance and economics, working as a consultant, and immersing himself in the country’s speciality coffee culture.
His partner, Namrata Asthana, shared his love for coffee. Also educated in the US, with a background in communications, she held roles at PepsiCo India, the Centre for Finance and Development and the American India Foundation.
When the couple returned to India and settled in Delhi, they were struck by a curious disconnect. The country grows some of the world’s finest coffee beans, yet few Indians can access high-quality brews. The robust flavours of South Indian filter coffee or the delightful Arabica blends were difficult to come by at affordable mom-and-pop cafés.
Determined to change that indifferent coffee culture and low engagement, they set up Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters in 2013. The name — drawn from an old Malabari word for a peacock’s tail — evokes the beauty and complexity the founders want to bring to every cup of speciality brew.
India’s coffee culture grew at two extreme ends of the spectrum 12 years ago. One could find off-the-shelf regular coffees — pre-ground beans and instant mixes — from brands like Nescafé and Bru. It was convenient but lacked the soul. On the other end was the vibrant but expensive café culture shaped by Café Coffee Day (CCD) and Barista. In between, a few homegrown brands like The Indian Bean, Seven Beans and Flying Squirrel found their toeholds, experimenting with better coffees and mostly selling through word of mouth or early ecommerce channels.
However, speciality coffees (think of cold brews or exotic concoctions of fruits, nuts and chocolate) were either imported and sold at a premium or new-age brands adopted a kind of Glenmorangie culture, nurturing exclusivity and catering to an eclectic mix of the ‘coffee curious’, expats and a handful of cafés willing to bet on a new wave.
Put together, these factors paved the path for Blue Tokai’s arrival. While researching, the founders realised that the market needed a middle ground, focussing on quality, wider access and pocket-friendly pricing. Undoubtedly, premiumisation sells in the F&B space. But overpriced elitism might not work for a new player in a country where drinking tea has emerged as a vibrant culture for a long time.
The brand took a bold step and entered the market with a powerful vision: Spotlight single-estate Indian coffee, ethically sourced, clearly traceable, freshly roasted and delivered directly to consumers.
The founders launched the mass-premium brand with a D2C website, a Probat roaster installed in their Delhi home (it sold only roasted beans until 2020) and an unwavering focus on quality and transparency. They also brought Shivam Shahi as the third founder and the COO in 2016 to lead café and retail operations.
Today, Blue Tokai has established a robust multichannel footprint across cafés, own website, B2B/corporate partnerships and FMCG Retail. By FY25, it reportedly operated as many as 150+ cafés and plans to open 100 more in the current fiscal year. Interestingly, the brand has a strategic concentration of outlets in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and several Tier I cities.
Blue Tokai’s revenue also climbed steadily — from INR 2 Cr in 2016 to INR 341 Cr (unaudited) in FY25 as claimed by the founder. This reflects a 58% rise over the previous financial year. It’s now targetting INR 1K Cr in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by FY27 and claims the company is growing at 65% YoY to hit that milestone.
Although the brand has yet to post a profit, its founders do not think it is a loss-making venture. “All our business channels are EBITDA-positive,” they claimed. “The only drag comes from central corporate costs — largely fixed investments made to support long-term growth.”
Those costs, they say, have now been absorbed, allowing it to turn a profit at the company level in recent months. “While we have grown at nearly 60%, our EBITDA has improved by about 80% compared to FY24. We are confident this momentum will continue, with meaningful gains in the current fiscal year, and align with our target EBITDA margin of 10-12% by FY27.”
As India’s coffee culture matures and demand grows for convenience and variety, the brand will scale its FMCG retail business (distinct from its D2C operations) by offering a wide range of ready-to-brew and flavoured coffees. The move will sharpen its competitive edge in the fast-growing packaged coffee market (more on this later).
Blue Tokai has raised $60 Mn to date, including $35 Mn in a recent Series C funding in August 2024.
How Blue Tokai Started Brewing A Coffee Revolution
When Chitharanjan and Asthana launched Blue Tokai, building a café chain wasn’t the goal. They simply wanted to fix a long-standing problem: the lack of access to freshly roasted, high-quality Indian coffee with clear traceability. At the time, information on origin, varietals, and processing methods was scarce, and transparency across the supply chain was virtually non-existent.
Speciality coffee in India was a niche — mostly imported, and largely appealing to expats, well-travelled urbanites, and a small set of yoga instructors, food bloggers, and millennial professionals who cared as much about sourcing as they did about taste.
Indian farms and local roasters rarely got attention. Independent labels existed but were scattered, hard to find, and often lacked the digital infrastructure to scale. Ecommerce was still early, and buying beans online — let alone choosing grind sizes or roast profiles — was far from mainstream.
But by 2016, the landscape began to shift. Urban consumers were becoming more conscious, curious, and willing to pay for quality. Blue Tokai’s bet on farm-level sourcing, transparent pricing, and consistent quality started to resonate — turning what was once a niche play into a fast-growing category.
In fact, its near-obsessive commitment to quality and traceability turned out to be the brand’s early and enduring differentiator. It works directly with coffee estates across Chikmagalur and Kodagu (formerly Coorg) in Karnataka and the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu to source Arabica beans, roasting them in-house according to order and shipping them within 24-48 hours. Complete traceability information is provided for each bag of beans, a rarity in the domestic market.
“This is part of our storytelling and branding exercise. Nobody was doing 100% transparent sourcing when Blue Tokai entered the market. But we disclosed the farm name, roast date and the process. It is essential for our business ethos,” said Shahi.
Meanwhile, product design played a subtle but crucial role. In a market saturated with loud, commercial packaging, Blue Tokai’s minimalist outlook, anchored by its hand-drawn peacock plume and earthy tones, felt fresh and refined.
However, turning a coffee startup into a lasting legacy brew would take more than just great beans and sophisticated designs. Hence, a stack of market research, venture capital, new strategies and USPs loomed large behind the next leap.
Building A Chain Of Modular Cafés And Surviving The Pandemic
By 2016, Blue Tokai had a loyal following and modest online traction. It also started to explore physical cafés and B2B partnerships. That was when Shahi joined.
At the time, Blue Tokai generated around INR 2 Cr in annual revenue through online sales and early B2B deals with clients like L’Opéra. The team, including the housekeeping staff, numbered about 10.
Between 2016 and 2020, the founding team experimented with various formats: Kiosks in embassies, In-store/café-in-café models, partnerships with local food outlets and standalone cafés measuring 500-600 sq. ft. “We had no retail experience. So, we learnt on the job and every location became a classroom,” said Shahi.
Their motto? Learn first; scale later.
By 2020, the brand had grown to 27–28 cafés, and most of them were profitable. Additionally, online repeat purchases topped 60%, while Blue Tokai was a category leader on Amazon India. Across all its channels — online, cafés and B2B — the business had a positive cash flow.
The pricing was another deliberate choice, mass-premium rather than luxury. The goal wasn’t to be the most expensive coffee on the shelf but the most trustworthy.
“Our cafés have been consistently priced 30% below premium players,” said Shahi. “We never wanted to be the costliest option. We wanted to be accessible to anyone searching for better coffee minus a premium price tag.”
By early 2020, Blue Tokai had carved a niche in India’s growing urban coffee scene. Then the pandemic hit — cafés shut overnight, revenues plunged, and a near-final funding round was paused.
Despite the setback, sales began to rebound through online orders and takeaways. Within months, the business recovered to 70–80% of pre-Covid levels.
Amid the disruption, Blue Tokai opened 15–16 outlets — a counterintuitive but calculated move to secure prime locations at lower rental costs. While not scaling aggressively, the expansion helped strengthen its retail footprint and position the brand for post-pandemic demand.
The Growth Playbook: Four Key Strategies Driving Blue Tokai
After the pandemic, customers returned for takeouts and indulged in the café culture. Zomato and Swiggy orders surged. In FY21, the company clocked INR 41 Cr in revenue, which climbed to INR 240 Cr in three years. The growth was not serendipitous.
It was driven by strategically located modular cafés — pre-fabricated, standardised units designed for easy assembly and relocation — alongside an FMCG portfolio push and what Shahi called “an omnichannel strategy driven by deep insights into consumer behaviour”. Here is a quick look at what is fuelling the momentum at Blue Tokai.
Smart cafés power speed, efficiency and scale. In the post-pandemic landscape, Blue Tokai has doubled down on its café strategy, focusing on efficiency, scale and tech integration. “Around 90% of our outlets are now modular,” said Shahi. “Plus, we found a sweet spot, around 500 sq. ft, which is cosy, compact and high on user experience.”
These smaller, standardised outlets slash capital expenditure, accelerate rollouts and allow the brand to tap into high-density urban neighbourhoods. The team had earlier tested a variety of formats, from expansive cafés to compact kiosks, before zeroing in on what worked.
“That experimentation phase taught us a lot,” the COO said. “Roughly, 70% of our café playbook is now standardised. Not to set an industry benchmark, but because it works for us.”
The payoff is speed and scale. If profitability holds, the brand plans to open 100 cafés annually, targeting 250+ outlets by FY26 and surpassing 350 ahead of a planned IPO in FY27. The café business is estimated to generate 70-75% of its total revenue.
However, scaling up is not just about numbers. Blue Tokai is banking on a modular structure and digital technologies to create cutting-edge, customised cafés with an independent vibe where size, layout and service formats will be market- and location-specific. For instance, coffee drinkers visiting an outlet in the middle of a crowded commercial hub may prefer high-volume automated systems, while people visiting a suburban outlet may appreciate baristas to focus more on their favourite brews and impeccable customer services.
The brand has also integrated tech solutions with its café pods to streamline services and elevate the in-café experience. It uses digital platforms for pre-ordering coffee and managing takeaways, reducing wait times and adding convenience.
Select outlets also feature digital screens that share details on coffee origins and brewing methods, offering a more immersive, educational experience and underscoring the brand’s commitment to transparency.
Push to grow the FMCG portfolio gains ground. “We were always a bean-first brand. From 2013 until the pandemic, that’s all we sold,” explained Shahi. “After that, we began innovating and offered equipment and beverage varieties to ensure convenience and accessibility.”
For example, Easy Pours, a single-serve drip coffee sachet, became an instant hit among younger, urban customers working from home. Next, the brand introduced cold brew cans, instant speciality coffee and coffee pods, all designed to simplify the brewing process while maintaining flavour and quality.
A broader mission is also driving this growth. With larger packs and ready-to-drink formats, Blue Tokai aims to reach a wider audience via digital platforms and retail shelves to make Indian speciality coffee more accessible.
Although smaller than its café business, the FMCG arm of Blue Tokai is now emerging as the second biggest revenue channel, which is scalable and distribution-friendly. It currently generates INR 80-90 Cr annually and could be on track to overtake the café business within three years.
Interestingly, Blue Tokai has quietly integrated a bakery unit across its café and FMCG operations, expanding its food offerings. In 2025, it has started building a manufacturing unit in Bengaluru to ramp up its roasting and packaging capacity. The facility will cater to café and FMCG demand, tighten supply chain control and accelerate deliveries, particularly in South India. The investment underscores the company’s operational readiness as it eyes aggressive expansion in retail and café formats in the next two years.
Online-offline moat, social media & omnichannel provide a competitive edge. While its offline cafés drive foot traffic and remain a core revenue generator, the brand’s active social media presence bolsters its visibility in lesser-known localities. On platforms like Instagram and Facebook, Blue Tokai announces new outlets, promotes events, and builds the community, keeping audiences engaged and boosting their anticipation.
Instead of pouring money into advertising, the brand hosts seven to eight monthly events such as music festivals and art shows, fostering direct engagement with its core audience. The strategy leans heavily on organic brand-building over paid promotion.
Accordingly, Blue Tokai’s D2C operations remain lean, with minimal marketing spend. “We are not a marketing-first brand. Product and service quality drive everything here. Our repeat rate is our brand moat,” said Shahi.
But what sets it apart is an unbeatable omnichannel strategy, with a seamless presence across touchpoints — from Amazon carts to airport lounges, physical outlets and corporate pantries. Its D2C website, app, cafés and partnerships with platforms like BigBasket, Blinkit and Zomato form an interconnected distribution ecosystem.
“But we are not done yet. There are still a lot of cards we have not played,” said Shahi.
Early-mover advantage spur category creation, consumer training & farmer support. Over the past decade, India’s coffee culture has undergone a striking transformation. Once dominated by ubiquitous instant brews and legacy chains, the landscape is now brimming with competition, nuance and evolving tastes. New-age brands like Sleepy Owl, Rage and Third Wave are riding this wave, but Blue Tokai, an early pioneer in speciality coffee, helped shape this change.
With a first-mover advantage in the farm-to-cup model, the brand has stayed ahead by controlling every stage of the process: Sourcing, roasting, investing in R&D, adopting the D2C model and designing its offbeat cafés. “We have built this category collectively,” said Shahi modestly.
To deepen its engagement, Blue Tokai has focussed on consumer education through workshops, barista training and in-café events to make speciality coffee more of an everyday affair.
It also nurtures a giveback culture by actively supporting farmers. Blue Tokai has set up a growers’ co-operative to bypass intermediaries as part of its sustainability and social equity commitment. The co-op helps farmers secure better prices and strengthens sourcing benchmarks.
The initiative has deepened the brand’s ties with coffee planters and underscores its emphasis on transparency and traceability. It is about making a difference together, a business approach often embraced by new-age ‘woke’ consumers.
The Road To INR 1K Cr Milestone
What is the future of speciality coffee in India? Will it remain an expensive, niche offering or enter the mainstream in a big way? No doubt there is enough competition even here, not only from leading brands like Blue Tokai and its peers but also from relatively new or smaller players like Chelvies and Subko Coffee. However, each brings its own USP in terms of convenience, tech-led experiences and differentiated taste/flavour profiles, and the number of unique brews is escalating fast.
In the premium segment, no one can ignore Starbucks, the deep-pocketed global coffee giant with its many offerings. But as Blue Tokai points out, craft coffee is no longer a niche (and expensive) indulgence. It is emerging as a daily ritual that can be both high-quality and accessible. Its founders also believe India does not need to mimic Western café culture. Instead, it can forge its unique path, where sourcing integrity, roasting expertise and consistent quality define the craft instead of exclusivity.
“We want to be the bridge between growers and everyday consumers who are curious but not elitist,” Asthana told the media in an earlier interview. This perspective shapes the brand’s business ethos, creating a distinct space between commercial-grade coffee and prohibitively expensive international blends.
The market, too, is favourable, as Indians are drinking a lot more coffee than before. The country consumes 1 Lakh tonnes of coffee internally, according to latest industry reports, but on average, 30 cups of coffee is annually consumed by an Indian compared to the global average consumption of 200 cups. This reveals a huge potential for market growth. Add to that the rise in purchase power and growing awareness of quality products among Indian consumers, and one sees a massive opportunity for local players dealing in speciality coffee.
Blue Tokai is targeting INR 1K Cr in topline revenue by FY27. But unlike brands that go blitzscaling, depend on big marketing campaigns or pursue acquisitions to diversify or scale, Blue Tokai has stayed grounded in a quality-first, fully transparent model and sought organic growth. Its progress hinges on steady execution, operational control and a deep understanding of its customers, principles it followed from Day 1.
“We are not looking to out-market anyone. We want our coffee to do the talking,” said Shahi. “That’s why we prefer to build from scratch. That way, we can control quality and keep our promise consistent.”
Better still, each revenue channel, whether cafés, FMCG retail, leasing or global expansion, is adopted only after internal pilots and thorough testing. Although Blue Tokai clocked a 58% revenue growth in FY25, it resists hasty category expansions or a product overload. Its focus remains clear: Serve a defined audience with consistent coffee and coherent messaging.
The ambition isn’t just to scale. It is to shape how India consumes and relates to speciality coffee over the long term, step by step.
Blue Tokai entered the global market in 2024, opening its first café in Tokyo. Again, it was not a random decision. Japan’s deep and evolving coffee culture and attention to detail align well with the brand’s lasting values. After a year of groundwork, including community engagement, tasting sessions and feedback gathering, Blue Tokai made a cautious launch. As of now, it is treating Japan as a test market rather than a springboard for rapid global rollout.
An IPO timeline has not been announced yet, but the leadership has made its intent clear: Build a fundamentally strong, brand-led business capable of going public by the end of this decade.
“It is not about chasing the listing. It is about building something that deserves to be listed,” according to Shahi. Until then, the focus remains on sustainable growth, profitability, and governance — pillars that support a public market narrative.
[Edited By Sanghamitra Mandal]
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