Passion in Every Cup: An Interview with Saiko Coffee’s Founders, Harshit and Yugein Behal

An Interview with Harshit Behal and Yugein Behal, Young Entrepreneurs and Founders of Saiko Coffee

In this candid conversation, Harshit Behal and Yugein Behal, founders of Saiko Coffee, share how they are brewing a fresh coffee culture in India, blending entrepreneurial hustle, passion for product, and a bold vision to bring great coffee to everyday life.

What inspired you both to launch Saiko Coffee, and what gap did you see in India’s coffee market that you wanted to address?

Saiko Coffee was born out of a very real gap we saw in India’s B2B coffee ecosystem. While the café culture was expanding rapidly, the backend support for businesses – restaurants, event companies, caterers, and retail chains was still fragmented. Most suppliers acted only as vendors, not as coffee partners.

There was no reliable, consistent supply chain, no guidance on beverage development, no training, and no collaborative support to help businesses actually grow their coffee vertical. Everyone was selling coffee, but no one was helping brands build a coffee experience.

We launched Saiko Coffee to change exactly that. Our vision was to become a true coffee partner – offering consistent quality, customised blends, beverage innovation, training, and operational support.

We wanted businesses to stop worrying about coffee execution and start focusing on customer experience. We want to be someone who people can rely on for everything.

They want a new menu, they want a new way of brewing, they want anything coffee, they pick up the phone and say “Hey Harshit, Hey Yugein, let’s get this done”

That is where Saiko began: solving the B2B gap with reliability, creativity, and partnership-led growth.

You have spoken about the ‘Fifth Coffee Wave’ transforming Indian café culture. How does Saiko Coffee embody this movement, and what innovations set you apart?

At Saiko Coffee, the Fifth Coffee Wave represents freedom – the freedom to enjoy great coffee in any format, any style, and in any experience you choose. We do not differentiate between instant, decoction, freshly brewed, or bottled formats.

For us, coffee is not defined by the medium; it’s defined by the quality, creativity, and consistency behind it.This philosophy is what makes Saiko truly Fifth Wave.

We support cafés, restaurants, and partners across every coffee format, offering solutions that work for baristas, chefs, and beverage innovators alike. But more importantly, we don’t limit coffee to a cup. We are exploring every space where coffee can exist:

• Coffee-flavoured ice creams
• Coffee-infused toffees
• Coffee-based biscuits
• Dessert coffees
• New mouthfeels and beverage styles

We want people to move beyond conventional cappuccinos and lattes and discover coffee in new textures, formats, and products.

Our innovation lies in expanding the universe of coffee itself — bringing it into foods, desserts, collaborations, and creative beverage concepts that break the rules in a good way.Saiko Coffee is not just part of the Fifth Wave movement; we are pushing it forward by making coffee more accessible, more experimental, and more fun for every kind of consumer.

How has technology influenced Saiko Coffee’s approach to roasting, brewing, and delivering consistent cup quality?

At Saiko Coffee, technology is not an add-on, it is the backbone of our consistency. Every roast, every batch, and every cup is supported by data-backed systems that ensure repeatable quality across all our café and restaurant partners.

All our roasting is done on in-system, precision-controlled machinery, and every roast profile is documented digitally.

This allows us to offer the same roast profile again and again, with zero deviation. We also share roast-profile information with our partners so they know exactly what they’re receiving and can rely on uniformity.

To maintain this consistency, we follow a strict sampling and tasting process. For every batch roasted:

• We store samples,
• Conduct cupping and sensory analysis,
• Compare it to previous batches,
• And verify that the flavour profile has not shifted.

If there is even a minor natural variation in the bean, our baristas visit the café to adjust grind settings and calibrate equipment so that the partner never experiences inconsistency in their cup.

We also package everything in-house using updated machinery that increases our efficiency, reduces human error, and ensures timely supply without compromising freshness.

From roasting to brewing assistance, every single step is supported by data- tasting notes, batch comparisons, roast logs, and calibration protocols, which is why our partners receive a cup that is stable, reliable, and true to the Saiko profile every time.

How do you decide which coffee blends to offer, and what goes into curating these profiles for the Indian palate?

Our blends are created with a very specific purpose: to suit how Indians actually drink coffee. While consumers are exploring new flavours and global styles, the majority of India still prefers coffee in milk-based formats.

So one of our most important profiling parameters is ensuring that our coffees taste rich, clear, and flavorful across all types of milk – regular milk, plant-based milks, creamier textures, and lighter alternatives. If a coffee doesn’t hold its character in milk, it doesn’t make it to our final list.

Beyond this, our curation process is built on three pillars:

            1. Taste Preference Mapping:

We study what Indian consumers naturally gravitate towards – smooth bodies, chocolatey notes, caramel sweetness, and balanced acidity.

            2. Versatility:

Every blend must perform consistently across hot coffees, cold brews, dessert coffees, and creative beverage formats.

            3. Innovation Potential:

We design blends that allow for unique textures and exciting beverages like tiramisu coffees, dessert-style drinks, flavor-forward concoctions, and future FMCG innovations.

Alongside these, as the Indian household still heavily relies on instant formats, we are also working toward launching our instant blends in 2026, to bring specialty-style flavour to an everyday, convenient format.

What has been the most challenging aspect of scaling your business from concept to a recognized coffee brand in India?

Scaling Saiko Coffee meant solving several challenges at the same time. One of the biggest hurdles was navigating a volatile coffee market, where prices fluctuate constantly. For us, it was important that our partners did not feel this instability.

So we made a commitment to offer consistent pricing throughout the year, even when market rates moved up or down. This required disciplined procurement planning and strong backend systems.

The second challenge was building a robust warehousing system. Since we procure large volumes annually, we needed a setup that could keep beans stable, secure, and protected.

Today, all our coffees are stored in controlled conditions using vacuum-sealed formats that maintain moisture levels and preserve freshness long-term.

A major operational challenge in India is the shortage of skilled baristas. To address this, we built a training structure internally, and by 2026 our Barista Academy will be fully open and ready to train baristas at scale.

This helps both our internal needs and allows restaurant partners to hire trained talent directly through us. Finally, there was the challenge of mindset shift and trust-building.

Many restaurants and hotels were not used to a coffee vendor who went beyond supplying beans to someone who could help create menus, curate coffee-based desserts, improve beverage programs, and support operations end-to-end.

We had to earn trust by showing that Saiko Coffee is not just a supplier, but a true partner, the one that supports them with product, training, menu development, and operational consistency.

These challenges shaped who we are today: a brand that focuses on stability, innovation, transparency, and long-term partnerships.

Where do you see Saiko Coffee in five years, and what trends in India’s coffee scene excite you most today?

In the next five years, we see Saiko Coffee emerging as one of India’s leading B2B coffee companies, not just in the domestic market but also as a strong player in exports.

Our focus is on becoming the most reliable, consistent, and innovation-driven partner for cafés, restaurants, hotels, and culinary brands across the world.

With the launch of our Barista Training Academy, we aim to solve one of the biggest gaps in the Indian coffee ecosystem: skilled manpower.

Our vision is to become a major provider of trained baristas and beverage professionals, ensuring that our partners have access to well-trained talent who understand coffee science, brewing, and customer experience. This will help us support our clientele not just with beans, but also with the people who bring those beans to life.

We also want Saiko Coffee to be known as the team that is pushing the boundaries of coffee experimentation in India.

From textures to formats to culinary integrations, we want to show consumers and businesses alike how far coffee can go- be it in desserts, beverages, FMCG products, or entirely new experiences.

We want to lead the movement that encourages India to think beyond the usual cappuccinos or lattes and imagine coffee in completely new ways.

Ultimately, our goal is to become the brand and the people who are truly “Saiko about coffee”: consistent in quality, bold in experimentation, and committed to expanding the coffee culture of India.

What advice would you share with young entrepreneurs hoping to innovate in the food and beverage sector?

The biggest advice we can give is: obsess over your customers. Truly listen to them. They will show you what they want, what they don’t want, and where the gaps in the market are.

Every conversation is data. Talk to as many people as you can. Network deeply. The answers come from the ground, not the boardroom.

Beyond general advice, we believe entrepreneurs should learn to reimagine their product across multiple formats. For example, we work with coffee. But we don’t limit ourselves to a cup—we ask:

• Can coffee blend with chocolate?
• Can it become an ice cream?
• A toffee?
• A biscuit?
• A dessert?
• A new texture or mouthfeel?

This mindset of expanding your product into different categories is how you grow your market and stay ahead of experimentation. It forces you to innovate, to explore, and to create experiences that are new to consumers.

And finally: go slow and go deep. Understand what people actually want. Identify what the masses enjoy, what excites them, and how your product can fit into their lifestyle. Build steadily, stay grounded, and let genuine consumer insight guide your way forward.

Their journey with Saiko Coffee reflects resilience, experimentation, and a commitment to making specialty coffee accessible and exciting for everyone, inspiring a new generation of founders to pursue ideas fearlessly while staying rooted in quality, community, and long-term brand building.

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