Coffee hasn't always been an easy sell in Nepal.
The Himalayan country is a major tea producer, as well as a major consumer. When people greet each other in the morning, they don't ask “how are you.” They say “have you had your tea?”
Tea — usually served with as a sweet, milky beverage in a piping hot glass tumbler — is as much a part of Nepal's culture as rice, a constant presence at homes, meetings and social gatherings.
But a growing number of Nepalis are warming up to coffee, as trendy cafes spring up street corners in cities and towns across the country.
Nepalis started trying coffee in the 90s. One cafe in the capital, Kathmandu, is widely seen as the pioneer.
Gagan Pradhan began Himalayan Java as a single cafe in an alley, and it's grown to a chain with 84 locations in the country. Pradhan estimates there around 7,000 cafes across the country, although so far international brands like Starbucks aren't in Nepal.
“There are lot of tea shops throughout the nation, but the kind of set up they have is still kind of old fashioned,” Pradhan said. “I think with investors and people like us, when it comes to coffee shop we are more serious not only with machines, we are serious with everything like the lighting, the set up, the furnishings, the location.”
Pradhan said tea shops usually offer just black tea or tea with milk, whereas a typical coffee menu has 10-15 hot beverages and about 10-15 cold beverages, he said.
Pradhan said it’s an appealing business because the initial investment to open a cafe is very low, they’re clean and simple enough for a single family to run, and customers are willing to pay more for coffee.
Several of eastern Nepal’s tea plantations in the mountains of east Nepal, famous for the tea, are joined by coffee plantations now.
Coffee is expensive, but it's a lifestyle Nepal is part of a regional trend. Coffee consumption has soared across traditionally tea-drinking countries in Asia as members of growing middle classes seek out novel flavors and adopt international trends.
Coffee is a premium drink in Nepal: it costs about $2 at Himalayan Java, which is enough to buy a meal at a local cafe in Kathmandu, or five cups of tea. Still, cafes bustle with office workers on breaks and students looking for places to study.
“I think the idea of drinking coffee (in Nepal) was first triggered with people thinking it would elevate their standard of living, but then once they tasted coffee many people just liked it and continued to drink it,” said Deep Singh Bandari, a social worker who is a regular visitor to the coffee cafes.
Nepal is starting to produce coffee too. Most of the coffee drunk in Nepal is imported, but in the country's famous eastern tea-growing regions coffee plantations are springing up.
According to Nepal’s National Tea and Coffee Development Board, about 400 tons of coffee was produced in fiscal year 2021-22, the most recent for which data is available. That's a drop in the percolator compared to the 26,000 tons of tea produced the same year, but the board predicts rapid growth.
“Both young and old people in Nepal just love coffee, and the number of coffee drinkers is growing every day. This trend is just going to grow,” said Pradhan.
