Kanika Birla & Cohoma Coffee

         

It was her decade long career in finance, consulting, and the development sector which made Kanika realise how much she enjoyed creating and implementing something from end-to-end.

The next step was to start a venture where she could plan, create, and scale from the ground up. Cohoma Coffee was a manifestation of that.  Kanika and her husband Paritosh, have always been coffee lovers and enjoy experimenting with different coffee flavours. They decided to take this love for coffee to the next level and venture into specialty coffees.

As a business decision too this made sense, with India being among the largest producers of coffee in the world. Kanika discovered that while till recently, most of this was exported, domestic consumption of coffee had risen exponentially over the last few years. As awareness and exposure increased so did people’s demands for an authentic coffee experience. The problem was most people had no clue where to look for such an experience.  Making a quality coffee experience accessible to people was and continues to be a core need gap. It was to bridge this gap that Cohoma Coffee and its philosophy – “great coffee, made easy” were created.

Kanika says there were three broad challenges they faced:

Creating a great quality product – They realized early on that they needed to cover everything from farm to cup to create a product which stood out. Understanding, identifying and working directly with the best coffee plantations in the country as well as internationally, setting up a quality facility for turning raw coffee into a great consumable product, creating custom packaging to keep the coffee fresh and aromatic for longer, researching developing the right taste profiles that consumers across the country would love, and building a Quality Lab that ensured that she delivered a good quality  product every time was a painstaking process. And that is why Cohoma works with AA+ Grade, single estate arabica, natural ingredients for flavours, and runs each batch through 10+ quality parameters before shipping them out. Until they made quality an OBSESSION internally, they did not launch.

Making specialty coffee convenient for customers was another challenge. While Kanika loved coffee connoisseurs who knew exactly what type of coffee they wanted, used varied brewing equipment, and spent time brewing their perfect cup, she realised several people look for an authentic experience without these aspects. Creating customized products for home-brewers of coffee was one of the biggest challenges. From developing their trademark PureBrew Filter which could brew a fresh cup in a minute, to having ready-to-drink cold brews, to ‘carry anywhere’ coffee bags, or conceptualizing the 2 Min On-the-go fresh coffee which didn’t require any equipment- these were some of the most challenging, frustrating and perhaps most satisfying part of this experience.

The final challenge was developing one of the widest ranges of coffees in the country, ensuring that every customer found something - hot / cold/ plain/ flavored/ strong / mild, black / with milk/ decaf. This held up the launch by almost a year but they were determined to have the full range of products ready before launching.

Last but not the least, Kanika and her team painstakingly hire people who understand and imbibe their love for and philosophy; something that also proved to be a challenge.

Kanika strongly believes that coffee is more than just a beverage – it’s an experience that is an integral part of people’s daily lives. A good cup of coffee is the perfect start to a day. It’s like a warm and homely hug that makes you feel good when you need a boost. Even a whiff of freshly brewed coffee can make you feel alive.

And CoHoMa is an encapsulation of that experience.

CO stands for coffee

HO represents home or that homely, warm hug that a good cup of coffee can be.

MA is for Aroma – the first thing that hits you when you hold a fresh cup of coffee.

Between bringing up a toddler and running a company, Kanika doesn’t have much free time left. Whenever she can she focuses on the things she enjoys- yoga, badminton, and doing some styling and design.

Kanika has a daughter who has just turned one. She can’t yet recite the alphabet, but she knows what a coffee machine is!!

Follow her on

https://www.instagram.com/cohomacoffeecompany/

www.cohomacoffee.com