With a deep passion for coffee and a desire to simplify the art of brewing, Apoorv Agarwal, the founder of The Simple Brew, has revolutionized the way we experience and enjoy our daily cup of coffee. Whether it’s a classic hot cup, a refreshing cold brew, a tantalizing coffee-infused cocktail, or a delectable dessert, The Simple Brew provides a versatile canvas for coffee enthusiasts to unleash their creativity. In a candid conversation with Agarwal, we delved deep into what makes The Simple Brew it is today.
ELLE: How did The Simple Brew take off from an idea into a reality?
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Apoorv Agarwal (AA): The Simple Brew is simply a combination of lockdown boredom coupled with some free time, passion for good coffee, a small kitchen experiment and a lot of trial and error, turned coffee start-up. The idea was to have good coffee at home, while everything outside came to a standstill. TSB’s founder, Apoorv Agarwal, used to brew batches of cold brew coffee for him and his family during the lockdown, which when sampled by a few close friends, was received surprisingly well. In the absence of bars, cafés and wine shops, and with people running low on stock at home, each visit by a friend or family turned into a chance to try a new coffee beverage. Fast forward a couple of months, and there was enough proof of concept, data and loyal friends turned customers to turn what started out as small coffee batches in 2 one litre jugs into a business idea.
ELLE: What challenges did you encounter while simplifying the coffee experience?
AA: The 2020 lockdown led to a lot of people struggled to figure out which coffee they wanted to buy, what roast, what grind, what equipment to use, etc. It was easy enough to come across a good bag of beans, but it took a lot of skill to brew it to perfection. There was this complexity everyone would attach to brewing coffee. The idea behind TSB was to uncomplicate it and make sure everyone can have access to the taste and experience of tasty, brewed coffee, but with the convenience of instant coffee. Further, there wasn’t any one stop solution for people who were looking for a product that could help make everything from basics hot and cold coffee to coffee-based cocktails and desserts, and a whole lot more. A sort of one size fits all if you may. The real challenge was doing repeated trial and error to figure out a blend and a brewing process that works great, not just across recipes, but also across customers.
ELLE: What are the key trends that you have observed in today’s coffee culture in India?
AA: The coffee space in India is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the next decade. More and more people are becoming accepting of various types of coffee, and with the advent of speciality cafes in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, the market is only going to grow. This can be attributed to a combination of various things such as a new-found knowledge amongst customers due to social media and the internet in general, and the ready access coffee now has. Availability of newfound content has made consumers very curious and increasingly demanding of newer and more innovative coffee based drinks and dishes, forcing industry players to go back to the drawing board, to keep up with this demand.
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There has been a very noticeable shift from the consumption of sugar laden coffees, usually used to mask the taste of low-quality beans, with people ordering 1-2 drinks and sitting in cafes for hours, to customers actually going to speciality cafes to learn more about coffee, the origin of the beans, the roast levels, the brewing process, etc. It was all due to a mix of awareness and availability. Additionally, necessity has and will always be the mother of innovation. Over the past 2-3 years more and more brands are recognizing the competition and introducing an array of products and increasing their offerings. Speciality coffee, for one, has gained a loyal fanbase in the country. Another example is brands introducing Nespresso compatible capsules and canned coffee pre- mixes. There’s been a noticeable shift and growth from the conventional definition of coffee and cafes. Constant evolution is more evident.
ELLE: What makes The Simple Brew different from the rest, considering the presence of new, competitive coffee startups?
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AA: Our entire business centres around our craft coffee concentrates. We use our own in-house blend that has been carefully formulated with a mix of beans from different plantations, blended in a ratio that we arrived at after months of trial and error. We also make our own water in house by using a mix of the right minerals to mineralize distilled water, making it perfect for brewing our blend. Lastly, we use our proprietary method to remove any bitterness and unpleasant acidity from the concentrate, making the final product smoother and more versatile than a lot of the other brands available in the market. The speciality of these concentrates is that they can be used to make a variety of coffee-based items, ranging from the basic Americanos & Cappuccinos to Cold Brew Martinis & Irish Coffees, as well as Tiramisus and Affogatos. All of these can be made using just one product, and without any prior know-how or expertise. While we guide the customers by helping them with various recipes to get started, we encourage people to experiment and see what works best for them. You’ll be surprised with the types of coffee recipes some of our customers are able to come up with.
ELLE: How do you integrate sustainable practices into your business?
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AA: There are a few practices we actively practise into the business’s day-to-day activities, and try our level best to spread as much awareness as we possibly can. For starters, other than the caps we use for bottling, there is almost no plastic used in any part of the production & supply chain. We also donate all of our post manufacturing ground coffee to an NGO in Mumbai for them to use as part of the compost they make and distribute to farmers around Maharashtra. We give the cold brew filter bags we use to a small weaving business based in Bangalore, which they use to make coffee filter yarn, completely FOC. All our local deliveries in Mumbai are done in custom made paper bags made by an NGO in Navi Mumbai that collects and reuses newspapers to make these bags. Lastly, we incentivise all our customers to return old used bottles for us to recycle or reuse by giving them discounts against the bottles they return. While we can’t control every aspect of the distribution chain, we try our best to do whatever little we can to give back.
ELLE: A business mantra that has helped you in making The Simple Brew successful.
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AA: That’s a tricky one to be honest. But if I had to pick one – there’s a quote by Mark Cuban that says, “Perfection is the enemy of profitability. In business, good enough is actually better than perfect”. I think as founders, we’re constantly micro- managing and running after this never attainable perfection. This, more often than not, is more counter productive than it is helpful.
ELLE: What is brewing next for your consumers that they should look forward to?
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AA: We’re definitely in the market to begin our funding journey before the end of Q2 2024. We’ll also be available on most food ordering and e-commerce platforms by end of Q1 2024. We’re also in talks with a couple of established F&B brands in the market to heavily focus on collaborations and offline events. We’re also in talks with a few offices and cafes to begin entering the B2B space. Once we successfully close in on these priority items, we’ll be looking at product portfolio expansion, vis-à-vis cold and hot brew bags, packaging our blend, roasted beans, flavoured RTD coffees, gifting, merchandise and a lot more!
