{"id":5313,"date":"2020-03-21T07:36:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T07:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thirdeyesight.in\/?p=5313"},"modified":"2022-11-09T09:15:51","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T09:15:51","slug":"indias-tea-cafes-have-made-a-good-start-but-the-real-test-begins-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myechoproject.com\/TES\/indias-tea-cafes-have-made-a-good-start-but-the-real-test-begins-now\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Tea Cafes Have Made A Good Start. But The Real Test Begins Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chaayos and Chai Monk are selling more than 3.5 lakh cups every day between them. Still, it isn\u2019t an easy market to crack.<\/i><\/p>\n

Written By Nishant Sharma<\/p>\n\n

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The moment a customer places an order at a Chaayos outlet, an IoT-enabled brewer starts preparing chai that can be made to order in 80,000 different ways.<\/p>

Called Chai Monk, the robot has reduced the time taken to make a cup by nearly a third to 2.25 minutes, Nitin Saluja, co-founder of the tea caf\u00e9 chain, told BloombergQuint. \u201cThis not only helps maintain a consistent taste of the tea consistent, but also reduces waste and manpower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reducing costs is crucial for the company as it competes in a nation of tea drinkers where for most people, chai outside home means sipping a milky and spiced black tea concoction at a roadside shop. Along with Chai Point, Chaayos has been trying to create a culture of tea cafes.<\/p>\n

The bet was the size of tea market in India. According to the National Sample Survey Office data, Indians drink 17 cups of tea for every single cup of coffee. Tea Board\u2019s data show nearly 80 percent of 1.35 billion kilograms of tea produced in India is consumed locally. And the tea retail, according to Euromonitor International, stands at Rs 18,000 crore, nearly 2.5 times that for coffee.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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That\u2019s only one part of the problem. Profitability is difficult even after scaling up as the fortunes of established coffee chains Caf\u00e9 Coffee Day, Costa Coffee and Barista show.<\/p>

The store count of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd.\u2019s Coffee Day, India\u2019s largest caf\u00e9 chain, fell by nearly a fourth over the previous year to 1,469 in the quarter ended September, with same-store sales declining nearly 4 percent. While the company\u2019s debt burden led to the tragic suicide of the founder, profitability at the store level has remained elusive.<\/p>

When CCDs and Baristas started, they were pushed as places of social gathering, according Arvind Singhal, managing director at the retail consultant Technopak Advisors. \u201cThe amount people spend (there) isn\u2019t enough to be profitable,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason food accounts for 50 percent of the revenue of cafes, which shows that there\u2019s nothing like a coffee culture or tea culture here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

How The Beverages Stack Up<\/b><\/p>\n

Figures in Rs<\/p>\n