For his family, coffee was a bean to be grown. But for Siddhartha, it has always been an experience to be offered. The rest, as they say, is history
"Where were you on New Year’s Eve, Siddhartha,” I asked the boyishly handsome man who serves a million cups of coffee a day, as he sat down in my study.
“I was in Calcutta,” he said. An unusual place for the man from Chikmagalur whose money could buy him a holiday in Bali, Big Island, New York or someplace on the French Riviera. Why Calcutta? Turned out that he prays at the Dakshineswar Temple. For two generations, the family has believed in the Ramkrishna Mission order.
(This story appears in the 05 June, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)