Every Indian has a story about their first Starbucks run when travelling abroad. To a chorus of anecdotes which predates the coffee chain’s India launch in 2012, it often involves feeling nervous as eyes scrolled up and down, bewildered, at the beverages menu while the queue behind you swelled in annoyance. In lighter moments, we might have shared a celebrity name against our coffee order, or in this writer’s case, tucked away her first rewards card in a nostalgia shoebox. 

Couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee associates Starbucks with his breakfast haunt during his time in New York in 2012. “So when one of the brands that you’ve grown up with, comes to you and says if you want to do a collaboration… forget Sabyasachi as a brand, think of Sabya as a person, for me it was amazing,” he says in lieu of talking about his new collaboration with Tata Starbucks to release a limited-edition range of ceramic cups and stainless-steel tumblers. “I said, let’s create something that already has a strong visual connect, so we have used our signature chintz prints inspired by the Sundarbans and the royal Bengal Tiger, but spread across three colourways,” This partnership also marks the company’s first foray into Indian fashion although internationally, they have teamed up with designer brands like Rodarte, Kenzo and Kate Spade. “In the initial phase of a brand journey, you’re trying to bring what Starbucks stands for internationally, the aspirational value. You want to bring the connection, and we have tried to do that in a manner where you connect with the Indian community,” Sushant Dash, CEO at Tata Starbucks Private Limited, explains to mid-day. “Then you start looking at collaborations to deal with [offering] something new and different to your consumer.” From a merchandise point of view, Dash says, the company not only wanted to collaborate with iconic brands but also wanted to bring a traditional Indian thing in a contemporary way. “And who better than Sabya to do that?”