BEST WISHES FROM
-Priyadarshi Shastri
Launched in 2019 in Kolkata, Potboiler Coffee has become a favourite name in the city’s vibrant café culture. The place has now expanded beyond other cities, opening its first café in Gurgaon. Their cafe is already making waves in the country with their special brews. Sourcing premium coffee beans from renowned estates, Potboiler’s menu offers a wide range of coffee from Greece’s Freddo Espresso to traditional Japanese manual brews such as the Hario Switch. We sat down with Sonali Lakhotia, Founder and Co-Owner of Potboiler Coffee to learn more about their business. Keep scrolling-
Potboiler’s tagline is “Wehaveabrewforeachoneofyou”.Can you tell us more about how you came up with this unique concept and how it reflects your offerings?
Potboiler was born out of a simple idea—coffee is more than just a beverage; it’s an experience. What started as a passion project in 2019 has now become a community-driven coffee haven where everyone finds their perfect brew. We wanted to create a space where coffee lovers, curious drinkers, and everyone in between could discover that coffee isn’t just bitter, it’s better. Our passion for speciality coffee and the belief that there’s a brew for everyone inspired us to set up Potboiler, a place where mods meet brews, and every cup tells a story that helps you pause and be in the moment. Whether you’re a fan of rich bold flavours or prefer something lighter and fruitier, we’ve got a coffee to match your mood. Our signature coffees, like ‘The Orange Palace’ or ‘Iced Vietnamese Coffee’, are unique in their crafting, using traditional brewing methods. What also helps us stand out is the concept of “Brew Crew’s Coffee Pick of the Month” where every month we showcase a special coffee that is seasonal or mood driven or simply trending. These coffees are Potboiler signatures that we guarantee you won’t find anywhere else.
Can you walk us through the process of creating one of your signature brews, like The Orange Palace or Iced Vietnamese Coffee? What makes these coffees so special?
Our coffee beans are sourced from some of the best coffee-growing regions in India and every bean roasted at Potboiler is selected with care to bring out the spectrum of flavours that coffee has to offer.
At Potboiler, we take pride in roasting our beans in-house at our Kolkata Production Facility, Potboiler Flat. quality. Once the beans are roasted, we ship them all the way to our recently launched outlet in Gurgaon, ensuring there’s absolutely no compromise in the quality of every cup served, no matter where you enjoy it.
For example, our *Iced Vietnamese Coffee* is brewed using a traditional Phil filter, a method that brings out the bold, rich flavours of Robusta coffee while maintaining a smooth finish. Our manual brew section also features other manual brewing equipment like the French Press and Hario Switch that help highlight the many Indian single-origin coffees we roast.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in sourcing high-quality beans from estates like Kuttinkhan, Baarbara, and Stanmore?
The biggest challenge this year has been meeting the rapid increase in green bean prices. It’s a worldly affair at the moment but the challenge becomes when our base costing takes a jump but we are unable to raise the prices of the final product in a way that justifies the new coffee prices we are sourcing them at.
With Potboiler expanding into new locations, how do you maintain the consistency and quality that the brand is known for?
We have opened our first outlet in Gurgaon on Sohna Road but our beans are sourced from renowned estates like Kuttinkhan, Baarbara, and Stanmore, allowing us to craft unique, flavourful brews. This meticulous process guarantees that every cup, whether brewed in Kolkata or Gurgaon, holds the same consistent, bold, and smooth flavour profiles that define Potboiler coffee. coffee. Every cup whether brewed in Kolkata or Gurgaon, is crafted with love, care, and an unwavering commitment to consistency. Our set recipes ensure that while we play with flavours, the quality and experience remain unparalleled.
What role does market research play in your decision-making process? How do you gauge customer preferences and demand for new offerings?
Market research plays a very important role. The same is not just for understanding what the demand of the moment is but also for understanding how the market can be created. This process has helped us launch our monthly coffee picks as well as one of our best sellers, Korean Croffles. We use digital media as well as a CRM system to understand the movement of items, how they are being interacted with, and who is interacting with them. Based on the data we receive, we always plan new offering launches based on what works, what could work and when we want it to work.
What are your expansion plans for Potboiler Coffee?
Our growth strategy is centred around both physical and digital expansion. We plan to open more Potboiler locations in key cities where speciality coffee culture thrives. We also plan to strengthen our subscription service to help us expand into markets where a physical store may not yet exist. Our plans also include expanding our offerings with products like concentrates, capsules, and coffee bags, introducing more unique brews, and deepening our community engagement through events and workshops.
What strategies do you employ to keep operational costs in check while maintaining the high standards of your offerings?
The biggest learning in strategizing has been keeping SOPs as well as communication standardised. Putting the right systems into place justifies not just the time given to developing the offerings but also ensuring there is consistency maintained in the entire operational cycle. The use of quality software has helped us to streamline our billing, reports as well as inventory. It has also helped us track every little raw material cost.
