The Starbucks invasion, silently but brewing

When I first flew into Mumbai more than two years ago, there was no Starbucks at the domestic arrivals in Terminal 1B. There was no Starbucks near my home at Infiniti Mall in Andheri West, where I currently sip an obnoxiously large Americano, listening to insipid American 80's music in a perfectly air-conditioned space reminiscent of some pseudo-industrial, postmodern coffee warehouse.

And amazingly enough, I see none of my ex-pat friends I have met here. Where could they possibly be at this hour? Certainly not across the street at Costa Coffee or down the road a few blocks at Café Coffee Day – two endangered caffeine species as far as the Starbucks top brass are concerned.  

But this opportunity of a little peace and relative quiet grants me a few spare moments to report to you that the Starbucks invasion has already begun, silently but brewing. There's more at stake than you might imagine. 

I grew up around the Seattle area – Starbucks country – and spent a great deal of my adult life there. 

This makes me a coffee acolyte in my personal default settings. For what else could combat the depression brought about by dreary clouds and rainfall which tend to dominate the seasons for much of the year? 

Sure, we have a plethora of microbreweries and that wonderful product, beer. We also have Prozac. But of the three, coffee does not carry with it an age restriction nor a requisite doctor's prescription, only that precious, life-affirming black blood, caffeine. 

My required delivery system is coffee, not tea. Until recently, getting a good fix was difficult to achieve in Mumbai. Sorry to say, India's great duopoly leaves little to be desired in the traditional black coffee department, sugary Little-Bunny-Foo-Foo drinks aside. This may seem like an obvious endorsement of Starbucks for coffee fans on behalf of my own crazed addiction, but it's not.  

It's a warning of sorts. Or call it a premonition. The unabridged Americanisation of India's café culture is only a half-a-cup away. This could be construed as either good or bad news for Indians. I'll share my thoughts after I order one of their delicious oatmeal cookies.  

At the heart of it all is the largest coffee chain cartel on the planet in partnership with TaTa Coffee, the world's largest integrated coffee plantation. Starbucks boasts over 20,000 stores in 63 countries and territories – with 22 of those stores currently in Mumbai and over 50 stores India-wide.  

The Starbucks outbreak, to date, is larger and certainly more impactful than Ebola's slippery foothold on the subcontinent. At the heart of it all is money, and plenty of it. Starbucks is valued at 50 billion dollars and is projected to double that valuation, according to CEO Howard Schultz in a statement given at the Starbucks annual meeting earlier this year.  

“We’re still in the early stages of the growth and development of Starbucks, we’re delivering record profits and revenue, sharing our success with our partners and heading towards a $100 billion market cap.” By comparison, TaTa Coffee has about 115 million dollars in total assets – but even this lowlier fortune is backed by a powerful multinational company, TaTa Group, worth over 141 billion dollars.  

So here's the problem. What we see on the surface is only a successful coffee chain, and one that is poised to surpass and even dominate its foreign (Costa Coffee) and Indian competitors (Café Coffee Day) by virtue of its unrivaled wealth and influence. Granted, Starbucks has a ways to go to rival Café Coffee Day's 1,500 plus stores. 

But consider the story of Tracy Cornell, a former Starbucks real-estate “dealmaker” who added over 900 retail sites during her career. “It was sort of piranha-like,” Cornell told Slate. “It was just talking to landlords, seeing who was behind on their rent. All I needed was an opening like that, where the landlord wanted out. I was looking for tenants who were weak.”  

Welcome to the tip of the iceberg for Wall Street ruthlessness. Besides a few standout competitors who benefited from a Starbucks store opening up close by to their own privately-owned coffee shops, there are plenty of tales of moms and pops stores being driven out of business by unseemly and aggressive tactics. Do we really want to enjoy a cup of Joe at the expense of others' livelihoods?

In the quest for good black coffee, I remain the junkie hypocrite by virtue of consumption. I fear that a little bit of that anarchist idealism in me dies every time I step foot inside a Starbucks store. It's not lost on me that I now reside in a nation of chai drinkers, but I can't say that I've visited more than two or three independent cafés with great coffee since arriving in India. What's a poor ex-pat to do?

I see Starbucks opening everywhere around me. There are at least four stores I know of within a ten mile radius of where I live. They don't serve the world's best black coffee – not by a long shot. But it's better than 99 per cent of the coffee being peddled to the citizens of Mumbai. That speaks volumes, quite literally.

And I'm sorry, but their snacks and treats are better than the sub-par dog food served up at Café Coffee Day and Costa Coffee. Be that as it may, I remain conflicted. I remain hooked. I need my coffee like I need my air, even if it's that sweet potpourri Mumbai variety.

Unfortunately for me, I can't stop thinking about the drink or its externalities, the ramifications, the bigger picture, the air-conditioned spaces, the pleasing aesthetics of a perfectly modulated corporate coffeehouse. I also think about the dialogue that isn't being had between Starbucks India and the customers they now serve in greater numbers than ever before.