Latte to talk about: Cafes are trying to reclaim their glory days as hubs of conversation and are wooing the young

Aakanksha Sundar wanted to trade “brain rot” and “bed rot” for something more meaningful. Last year, the 23-year-old moved back to her hometown, New Delhi, after graduating in clinical psychology in Bengaluru.

“I was on the hunt for things that felt meaningful and helped me meet like-minded people,” she says. “I was looking for a way to fulfil all these things and also fall back in love with the city I grew up in.”

On a coworker’s recommendation, she attended a lecture at a cafe in Saidulajab on the “Powerful Powerless Sarkari Official” sometime last year. There has been no looking back.


Sundar is now a regular at talks organised by unLecture, which curates lecture series across cafes and bars in Delhi. She says she has stayed in touch with some of the people she met there. “Most of the people I’ve met at these lectures are looking for some kind of intellectual stimulation. That’s really absent once you leave college and get stuck in professional life.”

She also values how low-pressure these spaces feel. “There’s no expectation to sound smart. It’s just a nice way to learn something new, engage with ideas you haven’t in a while and meet people along the way.”

Sundar is among the curious young Indians looking for intellectually satisfying conversations and more meaningful ways to spend time beyond the flickering screen. Across India, coffee chains—such as Blue Tokai, Third Wave Coffee, Barista and Araku—along with a bunch of independent venues are leaning into this need by reshaping the cafe from a place of consumption to one that also enables connections.
They are doing this through workshops and community-led programming that aren’t just one-off events. These are being looked at as a way to build footfall, deepen brand affinity and position cafes as cultural spaces, especially at a time of intense competition.

THE OL’ COFFEEHOUSE
In a way, this is about reclaiming the past. Historically, cafes were hubs of exchange. They were so central to public discourse that coffeehouses of 17th and 18th century England were dubbed “penny universities”.

Over time, especially in the last couple of decades, that role gave way to takeaway counters, laptop tables and screen-lit solitude. Cafes now want to reclaim some version of itself as a hub of chatter and conversations.

Blue Tokai, for instance, has partnered with unLecture to launch a platform, “Grounds for Thought”, with the latter handling speaker outreach and marketing and Blue Tokai providing the venue and collaborating on programming.

Pranav Sawhney, director of marketing and partnerships, Blue Tokai, says the idea emerged from a gap he noticed abroad: many conversations were happening in bars and breweries, spaces that were not always accessible or appealing, especially to younger consumers who are drinking less or older audiences seeking quieter settings. “A lot of people want to be part of such conversations, but not necessarily in alcoholdriven spaces,” he says.

Blue Tokai’s role is to host such talks. “We are not an authority on topics like gender or class, but we do want to be a space that facilitates these conversations,” says Sawhney. The programming has ranged from conversations on feminist publishing and urbanism to a Women’s Day session where a psychologist spoke about the Madonna-whore complex in the Indian context. April, Sawhney says, will be Dalit history month.

LEC LUSTRE
A range of subjects is important to hook listeners. Someone may walk in for a session because of its political theme but could return for a conversation on art simply because they have come to trust the format. Over the past four months, Blue Tokai and unLecture have had around 15 sessions, usually drawing 30-60 attendees, most of them in the 20-to-28 age bracket. Many sessions are scheduled for under an hour, but often run longer and attendees linger to chat among themselves.

unLecture is founded by three 20-something graduates of St Stephen’s College, Delhi. Mishka Lepps, the 22-year-old cofounder of unLecture, says she and her friends Kezia Mammen and Sonalika Aggarwal, started out in August last year with two lectures a month. The young company has gone on to curate a dozen lectures each in February and March. “The audience is increasing, and we typically sell out. That is why we have scaled from two to 12 events a month,” says Lepps.

Sneha Kapoor, founder of Plum Insight, a consumer and cultural consultancy firm, says the coffee shop has long been a third space and, as people sought to connect post-pandemic, its role has only grown. “There is a lot of fatigue around loud spaces. There is also digital fatigue. People want to engage meaningfully with others. It’s not just cafes; we are seeing vinyl clubs and book clubs and knitting and crochet clubs.”
While Blue Tokai hosts cerebral conversations, Araku is doing a mix of farmer storytelling, sustainability dialogue, book launches, brewing showcases, paint-and-sip sessions, music evenings and quiz nights. The company views these as a way of activating the cafe as a cultural and intellectual space.

“What has been particularly interesting is the mix of audience—we see coffee professionals, art enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, students and even those new to specialty coffee engaging with equal curiosity,” says Neha Rege, CFO, Araku Coffee.

Third Wave Coffee CEO Rajat Luthra says such initiatives are now central to how the brand engages with audiences across cities. “These events have evolved organically as our cafes are true community spaces where people gather not just for coffee but also for conversations and shared experiences,” he says.

The brand is holding curated sessions, workshops and community gatherings as people are using cafe as a place to meet, collaborate and exchange ideas. For instance, at its cafe at the Sattva Knowledge Park in Hyderabad, it hosted one-on-one sessions with a Singapore-based university, giving students an opportunity to receive personalised guidance on applications.

Rajat Agrawal, chief executive of Barista Coffee Company, says they are making workshops and curated events more frequent at their cafes in metro cities to start with: “The audience is diversified in age groups but with common interests and goals. The essence is to build a community, and not just be seen as a place to buy or sell. This is quite mature in the western countries and India is adapting to that in a big way over the last couple of years.”

WILL THIS SELL COFFEE?
However, this may not have a direct impact on sales. “Is there a one-to-one business sense? Absolutely not,” says Sawhney. In some cases, these events are programmed at cafes with lower footfall to bring in visibility and transactions. In others, he says, they are a way of introducing Blue Tokai to younger audiences who may spend time in cafes, but do not necessarily feel affinity towards any brands.

The payoff, he suggests, is slower and more subliminal: not an immediate coffee purchase the next day, but a longer-term sense of connection. “You have to be really committed to show up,” he says. The brand plans to take the format to Bengaluru next, followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The shift is not limited to coffee chains. Across venues, there is a growing focus on activity-led programming. Krishna Khurana, 29-yearold cofounder of Social Sailor, an events and marketing company in Bengaluru that works with cafes and other venues, says consumers are seeking more than just food or drinks, especially on weekends.

“People are a bit bored of the usual plans. They are looking for something more experiential,” he says, adding that this demand cuts across audiences—from couples and friend groups to individuals going out alone.

Events, says Khurana, have taken off in the past two years, with cafes using them to build brand awareness and community, while also addressing uneven footfall. “There are peak periods in a year, but there are also dips, and that’s where programming helps,” he says. Smaller cafes work on events and marketing, sometimes investing upfront to build awareness and draw in an audience.

BEYOND CAPPUCCINO
Araku’s Rege says good coffee is now a baseline. “What differentiates a cafe is what it enables beyond the cup. Conversation is emerging as a powerful layer not in a loud, programmed way, but in a thoughtful, curated manner. The cafes that will stay relevant are the ones that create spaces for exchange, reflection and community,” she says. “At Araku, we see ourselves not just as serving coffee, but as hosting a certain kind of dialogue. And that, increasingly, is where the real differentiation lies.”

At a time when consumers are increasingly able to spot when they are being sold to, the line between genuine community-building and commercial intent has become sharper. Younger audiences, in particular, are wary of overt marketing.

“Brands need to be very careful about how they join these spaces, because if you try to market yourself too aggressively, or even in a very upfront way, then it becomes inauthentic. Brands can choose to facilitate such experiences but it should not be a productfirst approach. It should be experienceand community-first,” says Kapoor.