"The Idea Was to Plant Two Trees With Every Coffee We Sell, says Arav Jain"

While we casually sip away at our coffee on a daily basis, there’s a whole lot of innovations and advancements happening in the coffee industry to ensure that we get the best, most delicious, and well constructed coffee product delivered to our face-holes. 

So, this new venture in the coffee business, raises the bar by planting two trees with every coffee sold. Situated right at the heart of the city with some quirky menu innovations and a never seen before concept, this place should be on the list of every coffee lover in the city.

In conversation with Restaurant India, Arav Jain & Tarun Agarwal, Co-Founders, 2Tree Coffee shares the incredible journey of the never seen before concept and how they plan to scale this business.

Tell us about the unique concept of your brand. 

Sustainable: We plant 2 trees for every cup of coffee sold. The idea is to grow them organically so that the produce comes back to the people through our kitchen.

Spiritual: We are also a meditative space for people to take a break from the daily hustle and bustle of life and spend some time in peace. The singing bowl on each table, slow meditative chants playing in the background, constant aroma of organic incense sticks and 2 waterfalls in the cafe add to the spiritual aspect of the place. One of the co-founders Arav Jain, likes to do a 2 -minute meditation session with the guests who are interested to engage them and set the pace for their time at 2Tree Coffee.

Conscious: We are extremely conscious about each item that goes in the cup of coffee. We are very conscious about the technical side of coffee and make sure we respect the science behind it. We also make almond milk and sugar syrup in-house.

Your brand logo is indeed one of its kind. Tell us about that.

Everything in this world starts with a dot and similarly, 2Tree Coffee started with a dot, which goes on to become a coffee shop and comes back in the form of 2 trees. So, our whole idea behind this fits in to our concept.

Another plus point is your ‘Menu’ and the way every recipe has been mentioned is quite incredible. Tell us about.

The idea is to keep things as transparent as possible. We have been very clear about this concept, be it preparing coffee or communicating about coffee. The idea is to educate people about coffee, like people should know what goes on in their cup of coffee and in what proportion, hence the bifurcation of each coffee and food item.

What is the vision of your brand? 

We envision a green earth. We envision prospering communities all over the world. We believe in giving back. The way we do it is by celebrating and empowering each individual, one cup of coffee at a time. We just happen to make great coffee, consciously.  

What were the challenges faced? 

The biggest challenge we faced was finding the right location because we were hunting for places when the sealing drive was at it's peak in Delhi. A lot of markets were out of bounds for us and due to scarcity in the market, the prices of the ones available shot up.  Secondly in the F&B industry, the attrition rate is extremely high. Due to new restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, bistros opening everyday in a place like Delhi, there are too many options for people to leave one place and go to the other. Therefore, retaining your staff is very difficult. 

What are your franchising plans?

Yes, we definitely have plans to franchise and expand our brand. My only condition is I only want people to take our franchisee who are in alignment with what we are trying to do.

How do you plan to scale the business in the near future?

We are in plans to retail our own coffee beans and organic vegetables grown by us and also use them in the kitchen. Also, we are looking forward to open 2 more locations in the next 1.5 years 

What are your expansion plans? 

The idea is to grow to at least 6-7 locations in the next 4 years and then get into FOCO model.