Pune Inc: What creates city’s top-notch Korean cafe? A special coffee and Buddhist way of business

“We want to practise Buddhist teachings. We might not be able to apply all the teachings in business but, at least, we can have a Buddhist attitude,” says Bae Daeguk, who helps the cafe’s founders – his wife Mayuri Bhalerao and her mother, Lata Bhalerao – with operations.

“There is a teaching that, even if we don’t have anything to give as a donation, the first thing we can still give to another person is a smile. We get so much good energy from the customers. Even if a customer gives us very bad and serious energy, we make sure we respond with a smile,” says Bae Daeguk.

The cafe began with a different sort of objective, and it was not to make money. “In Korea, my parents are working. My father is more interested in helping other people, especially in poor countries in Africa. So, he travels around the world donating spectacles, sunglasses and so on. We were keen that Mayuri’s parents also keep working because a few hours of work and healthy stress are helpful to your health and essential for your well-being,” says Daeguk.

Daeguk, who was born and raised in Changwon-si, the capital of South Gyeongsang Province in South Korea, should have known the direction his life would take when he found out that the meaning of his name was “Maharashtra”.

He had come to India in 2017 to understand how to translate Indian scriptures in Sanskrit and Pali into Korean. He had studied Sanskrit back home for 10 years “as a hobby”.

Mayuri and Daeguk met over a language app – he wanted to learn modern Indian languages, such as Marathi or Hindi, while she was keen on Korean.

The items at the cafe are baked or made in-house and Daeguk points to the sweets and savouries on display as customers try to make a choice.

“The concept of combining coffee with fresh cream is not very common in India, but in Korea, it is very popular. The cafe offered this coffee to Pune and people liked it. There are also several items that are not strictly Korean but are popular in the country right now,” he says.

The cafe is “doing well” and the plan is to open an academy to train baristas in Pune.

“Our will is also to focus on hygiene, which is very important to the Korean way of life,” says Daeguk.