What Does a Cup of Coffee Have to Do with How India Travels?

I have been thinking about something for a while now. Why do we consume what we consume? What makes us want certain things? And at what point does something that was once a luxury become a habit, or even a part of our everyday lives?

Take coffee, for example.

India has been growing coffee for generations. Yet, somewhere along the way, our relationship with coffee began to change. We started asking where the beans came from, how they were roasted, how the coffee was brewed. We were willing to pay more for a better cup. Cafés became places to work, meet, talk or simply spend time.

I find that fascinating. What changed? Was it greater income, more exposure, better products or simply the desire for a different experience? And how does someone recognise that shift early enough to build a business around it?

Now think about travel.

I have spent much of my professional life around hospitality and tourism, and I remain endlessly curious about how this economy actually works.

Why are Indians travelling so much more? Why are we discovering places within our own country that we rarely considered visiting earlier? Why are smaller destinations becoming popular? Why are families willing to spend considerable amounts on holidays, sometimes several times a year?

And then there is international travel. More Indians are looking beyond the familiar destinations. Some travel for food, some for culture, some for adventure. Many simply want to see and experience more of the world.

What is driving all this?

Is it income? Better roads, airports and connectivity? Social media? Or has something more fundamental changed in how Indians think about spending their money?

I am equally interested in what happens behind all this demand. Because tourism is an extraordinary economic engine. A flight fills a hotel. A hotel supports restaurants, taxis, shops and local businesses. A small town suddenly finds new customers for things it has been producing for years. Jobs get created, incomes improve and more people enter the economy.

But I often wonder whether our infrastructure, our skills and our businesses are keeping pace with our appetite to travel. And whether we fully understand the opportunity sitting within domestic tourism itself.

That is where the idea for this conversation began.

I wanted to bring together two people who look at India from entirely different vantage points.

Matt Chitharanjan, who co-founded Blue Tokai, started with a very personal problem around finding good coffee. From there, he helped build a business around a category that was still developing in India.

Indiver Rastogi has spent over two decades in travel, with Air France and Thomas Cook. He has watched how Indians travel, how their expectations have changed and how the industry has had to respond.

I was curious to hear them together.

Because when you think about it, coffee and travel have quite a lot in common. Both depend on aspiration. Both are shaped by exposure and experience. Both involve people making choices about what matters to them and what they are willing to pay for.

And both tell us something about where India is heading.

Then comes another question that interests me. How do you build a business around these changing choices? How do you know whether you are seeing a passing trend or a market that will last? And once that market grows, how do you protect the quality of the experience while serving thousands, perhaps millions, of customers?

There is also something to learn from the two men themselves. One built a business as an entrepreneur. The other built his career within large organisations. I wanted to understand how differently they see growth, people, training, leadership and the responsibility that comes with scale.

And, of course, where their thinking meets.

I certainly didn’t expect coffee and travel to explain the Indian economy. That would be rather ambitious for a podcast. But I did feel that putting these two people together might help us understand a small, interesting part of it.

 

For me, that was the real reason for recording this conversation.

I wanted to look beyond the products we buy and the journeys we take. I wanted to understand the choices behind them. The businesses that make those choices possible. And the opportunities they create for India.

As India grows, how are we changing with it?

That is what I wanted to explore with Matt and Indiver.

And I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.

Kunal Vasudeva

TALK with Kunal Vasudeva | Matt Chitharanjan × Indiver Rastogi

FRIDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2026 • YOUTUBE + SPOTIFY