Homegrown Indian Beverage Industry Takes On Cola Giants With Nostalgic Flavors
A handful of new Indian beverage companies are offering traditional Indian tastes in neat, hygienic packs and bottles. The industry is growing fast and already competing with big soda companies.
A few weeks ago, my husband brought home a bottle of chilled beverage that wasn't on the grocery list I had sent him out with. It was a bottle of pre-packaged sugarcane juice – a novelty in a market flooded with bottled soda and mango drinks. But one sip of the drink and I was transported back to my childhood summers.
I grew up in the southern city of Chennai, where summers are scorching. And sugarcane juice was a popular seasonal cooler. I would stop for a talls the plump cane stalks through his machine and turn its big wheels with his hands. A pale green juice would flow out on to a steel container on the other side.
