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A café in Mumbai. A corner table. A husband and wife sitting across from each other, not quite looking at each other, the way people sit when they are both waiting for something they are not sure they are ready for. The father's phone is in his hand. He calls. On the screen, a contact photo — the face of a young man, the name Arpit . The call goes unanswered. The mother reaches across the table, places her hand on his arm, and says the kind of thing that is only said when som

Industry and Competitive Context When Starbucks entered India in October 2012, it stepped into a market that was structurally tea-dominant — a country where, by its own acknowledgment, 91% of the population thrived on tea as the primary hot beverage. The organized café segment, while nascent, was far from uncontested. Café Coffee Day, the homegrown market leader, had already crossed 1,000 outlets by the time Starbucks opened its first store. Barista and Costa Coffee had estab