Around Town: How a South Indian gentleman’s love for filter coffee gave Mumbai its first roastery in 1939

Inside Shrikant & Daughters Coffee Company, a roastery in Mumbai, where Shweta Shrikant takes us through the process of roasting coffee. Express photo by Amit Chakravarty.

Shweta, alongside her sister Shruti, represents the third generation running the business — alongside their mother Subhadra. Both sisters are engineers who transitioned into the family trade: Shruti, now Managing Director, joined around 2012 and leads sales, operations and procurement; Shweta joined full-time in 2021 and heads product development, quality control and marketing. Both have since trained formally in sourcing, roasting and flavour profiling.

We met Shweta at Mysore Concerns’ physical outlet in Matunga, a stone’s throw from Cafe Madras.

“In my grandfather’s time, coffee was roasted right here,” she said. “The store also became a hub for South Indians — a sort of home away from home. People missed their coffee and their homemade masalas, so my grandfather would make sambar and rasam powders at home and sell them here.” His vision was straightforward: to bring good coffee into people’s homes. “Bombay didn’t really have a strong coffee culture then. We were among the first to source beans from the Chikmagalur belt, roast them, grind them, and sell them locally.”

Freshly roasted coffee beans at Shrikant & Daughters Coffee Company. Express photo by Amit Chakravarty.

Venkatram passed away at 55, leaving his son Shrikant to take over at 16, who would attend Khalsa College in the evenings while running the business by day. The Mysore Concerns that exists today was largely built by him. From the late 1960s until his passing in 2021, he expanded the business across Mumbai and beyond, building retail and wholesale networks that today include Reliance, D-Mart and Nature’s Basket alongside neighbourhood kirana stores. Over the decades they have also supplied to Udupi institutions like Santosham and Cafe Mysore, and counted Shakuntala Devi among their regulars. More recently, Vidya Balan spoke about them as one of her go-to spots to source her coffee.

The product range today runs across three broad categories — chicory-blended coffees for traditional South Indian filter coffee (the bestseller is Brindavan Bold, an 80:20 blend of coffee and chicory); 100% coffee blends, including a Legacy Blend of Arabica and Robusta; and more specialised single-origin and micro-lot offerings for consumers who want traceability. Among the latter is Monsoon Malabar, a uniquely Indian coffee created through exposure to monsoon winds and moisture, a process that originated accidentally during colonial trade routes.

The coffee is grinded and packed at Mysore Concerns in Matunga. Photo courtesy: Special Arrangement

“Our core philosophy has always been about home brewing,” said Shweta. “Success, for us, isn’t just scale. It’s when someone walks in because of the aroma, learns about coffee, buys a packet and a filter, and starts making coffee at home.”

The roastery, now called Shrikant & Daughters Coffee Company and spread across two units in an industrial estate, houses both an old manual machine and a new 25-kg German Probat roaster. “We are among only three people in India to have it,” she said, explaining how green beans — single origin or blended — are roasted to a specific profile, cooled, then ground and packaged at the Matunga store before going out to restaurants, cafes and homes from Nagaland to Ladakh. Annual production, she said, is anywhere between 80–100 tonnes.

“Sales have been growing at around 20 per cent year-on-year,” she added.

The challenges, however, are mounting. “Arabica beans that cost Rs 300 per kilo a decade ago now cost upwards of Rs 700,” she said, adding that climate change is a quiet but persistent disruption — rising temperatures are affecting yields at altitude, Arabica is increasingly sensitive, and estates are beginning to shift towards more resilient varieties like Robusta, Excelsa and Liberica. “It’s not a shortage yet,” she said, adding, “But we are looking at constrained supply and rising prices. This will also require a shift in consumer preferences.”

At the Matunga store, which is roughly 20 by 15 feet, equipment lines the shelves alongside the coffee: South Indian filter, moka pot, French press, pour-over, AeroPress. Staff will help you understand your palate, your preferred flavour profile, which blend suits you and which brewing method fits your life.

“Legacy is only meaningful if it’s upheld through quality and consistency. Otherwise, it’s just a name,” said Shweta, adding that as the third generation of women-led coffee roasters, their intention is simple — to uncomplicate coffee while staying rooted in the craft. “What was once a simple beverage, now comes with extensive rules. chemistry and rankings. We believe that good coffee is the one you enjoy. With intentional sourcing and precision roasts, we want to help you experience the joy of brewing, minus the jargon.”