The perfect blend

The coffee will be slow roasted in the Italian way using beans from Venezuela and Kenya and will be soon be available from a branch near you.

This lifestyle promise to India’s burgeoning middle class was made by the UK-based Costa Coffee, which announced on Wednesday an agreement with Ravi Jaipuria, an Indian entrepreneur, to open 300 outlets across India.

Mark Phillips, managing director of Costa, said: “India is predicted to become the fourth-largest economy in the world and has a growing middle class. We estimate there are 40 million potential Costa customers there.”

The first Costa Coffee shop, with 60 seats, is to open shortly in Delhi’s Connaught Place, where there will be a suitable tamasha to launch the experiment.

The UK company has established an Indian team led by Bhaskar Basu, who is working with the beverage group Devyani International to establish a local production facility for the food products. Snacks on offer will cater to Indian tastes, with Costa selling sandwiches with chicken tikka or paneer tikka fillings.

Costa has more than 370 shops in the UK, but has expanded overseas to include 90 outlets in West Asia, operated through franchise partners.

In 1995, Costa Coffee was bought by the giant leisure group, Whitbread, which operates brands, including Travel Inn, Beefeater, David Lloyd Leisure and TGI (thank God it’s) Friday.

On the Indian side, Jaipuria heads a large conglomerate with interests ranging from beverages and pizza retail to real estate. Indian staff will be brought to London to the “Costa college” by Waterloo railway station for training in how to blend, roast and grind the beans. Three persons have already gone back to India after the training.

Phillips said: “The reason we identified India was because its young, affluent middle class like to drink coffee and like to differentiate themselves from the older generation.”

He added: “This is a major deal for Costa and we are delighted to be the first international coffee brand to open in this fast-growing market. There are already successful local concepts, so there is a proven consumer demand for the product.

“While India is a tea-growing nation, it’s also a coffee-growing nation. As the business grows, we will source our coffee locally.”

In 1971, Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa started a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Drawing on their Italian background and Sergio’s experience of blending and roasting coffee in Parma, the brothers established Costa’s own roasting style.

The Costa brothers opened the first Costa store in London in 1978 and growth expanded at the rate of two stores per year with the help of their family and friends in the business.

Beans were slow roasted at reduced temperatures to produce a fuller, less bitter flavour and a specially developed espresso blend was created of six parts arabica and one part robusta to create Costa’s unique taste.

Both the roasting process and their special blend Mocha Italia are mainstays of the Costa business today.