Coffee houses flourish in India

Coffee houses flourish in India as places for students and young professionals to meet. Although most of India is a tea-drinking country, there is not much of a tradition of comfortable tea houses. The largest Indian firm, Café Coffee Day, is opening twenty new coffee houses each month. The Italian firm, Lavazza, purchased the second largest Indian coffee house company, Barista, in March 2007. A British firm, Costa Coffee, has 32 coffee shops in Delhi alone. American companies have been slower to establish themselves in the subcontinent, although Gloria Jean is expected to arrive by the end of 2007. A so-called conservative estimate suggests that the coffee house market will grow by 40% annually. For more, see here.