Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters

Overview

Blue Tokai was founded in 2013 by Matt Chitharanjan and his wife Namrata Asthana after they moved from Chennai to Delhi and couldn't find freshly roasted coffee — they started with a 500g tabletop roaster in her parents' apartment, sourcing directly from Indian estates whose export-grade beans had historically all been shipped abroad. Engineer Shivam Shahi cold-emailed Matt via LinkedIn and joined as COO in 2016 to scale the operation. The peacock-tail name (from a Malabari word for the bird's plume) now sits on 150+ cafés across India plus outposts in Japan and Dubai, and Blue Tokai is widely credited with launching India's specialty third wave.

Known for

• Founded 2013 by Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana — pioneers of India's specialty third wave
• Direct-source partnerships with Indian estates that had historically exported all their export-grade beans
• 150+ cafés across India plus international outposts in Japan and Dubai
• Started with a 500g tabletop roaster in a Delhi apartment, scaled to ₹341 crore unaudited revenue (FY25)
• Strong B2B arm supplying 1,000+ businesses; ₹1,330 crore valuation (June 2025)

Why it matters

Blue Tokai is the foundational example of how to build a domestic specialty market in a country where the best coffee was traditionally exported wholesale. By sourcing directly from Indian estates, publishing origins, and building a café network in a tea-drinking market, the company effectively created the demand for fresh single-origin Indian arabica in India. It is now the largest specialty coffee brand in India by revenue and store count, and the model — direct estate sourcing plus owned retail — has become the template for the broader Indian specialty scene.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

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color sorting

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roaster machine

Probat (initial; multiple roasters across five city facilities)

filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

Multiple roasteries across five Indian cities

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

This roaster operates a café.

Recognitions

• India's largest specialty coffee brand by revenue (FY25)
• Hurun Unicorn — ₹1,330 crore valuation (2025)
• Verlinvest-led Series C (2025)

Sources

• https://canvasbusinessmodel.com/blogs/brief-history/blue-tokai-coffee-roasters-brief-history
• https://medium.com/@madhav2002/the-blue-tokai-story-from-a-bedroom-roastery-to-a-216-crore-coffee-empire-b4c3fc0c08c3
• https://inc42.com/startups/inside-blue-tokais-4-point-playbook-to-hit-inr-1000-cr-revenue-by-fy27/
• https://www.zomato.com/blog/cups-of-change-how-blue-tokai-rewrote-indias-coffee-culture/
• https://freshcup.com/how-india-acquired-a-taste-for-specialty-coffee/