India's first pre-portioned artisanal hot chocolate. Explore Hot Chocolate

What should your cafe sell?

City Menu Planner, built on the milk line

Enter your pincode. You get the drink to put first on your menu, the season it sells in, and the reasons behind it.

Your cafe
New cafeWest IndiaSpecialty coffee city

Your menu plan for Pune

Put first

Thick hot chocolate

Served in a small cup. In the West it sells as an evening dessert, not as a glass of milk.

Classic darkSampler
Add second

One coffee blend

80/20 or 70/30 for your milk drinks. One blend, not a long list.

80/2070/30
Try for 8 weeks

One single origin coffee

Beside your house blend, on pour over, for the people who search for specialty coffee.

AttikanMonsoon Malabar
Hot chocolate season: Nov to FebCold coffee season: Mar to MayMonsoon: Jun to Sep
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecHot chocolateCold coffeeMonsoon

Need the machine, the recipes or the whole drinks menu set up? Get a consultation from our team

Which coffee blend and hot chocolate
Coffee blend
80/20 or 70/30 for milk drinks. 70/30 or Vietnamese Blend for cold coffee.
Hot chocolate
Classic dark, made thick, served small.

These pairings are our suggestions from the journal. Taste a sample before a bulk order.

Andhra PradeshArunachal PradeshAssamBiharChandigarhChhattisgarhGoaGujaratHaryanaHimachal PradeshJammu and KashmirJharkhandKarnatakaKeralaMadhya PradeshMaharashtraManipurMeghalayaMizoramNagalandDelhiPuducherryPunjabRajasthanSikkimTamil NaduTelanganaTripuraUttar PradeshUttarakhandWest BengalOdishaThe milk lineDelhiDelhiMumbaiMumbaiBengaluruBengaluruChennaiChennaiKolkataKolkataHyderabadHyderabadPunePuneAhmedabadAhmedabadJaipurJaipurLucknowLucknowChandigarhShimlaShimlaSrinagarDehradunGuwahatiGuwahatiShillongDarjeelingGangtokBhopalIndoreKochiGoaGoaBhubaneswarPatnaNagpurCoimbatoreOotyManaliLehLehJammuMunnarLudhianaThiruvananthapuramKozhikodeThrissurMysuruMangaluruMaduraiVisakhapatnamVijayawadaSuratVadodaraNashikVaranasiRanchiRaipurAmritsarPuducherry
More milk than India's averageLess milk
The idea behind the plan

The milk line across India

Above a line from Gujarat to Bihar, milk is plentiful and is the drink itself. Below it, milk carries tea and coffee. That decides what a cafe drink competes with.

Read the milk line series

Why this plan

Three things decide what sells in a city.

Milk

Pune has less milk per person than India's average

Maharashtra347 g
India average471 g
Punjab, the most1,245 g

Here milk goes into tea and coffee. Hot chocolate competes for that cup, and that is why it sells.

Grams a person a day, NDDB 2023-24What is the milk line?
Habit

Milk goes into tea and coffee here

48 of every 100 people in the West drink coffee.

Milk is not drunk on its own as much. It carries chai and coffee, so a better cup has a budget to win.

Coffee Board of India, 2023Read more
Search

People in Maharashtra search most for coffee beans and hot chocolate

Coffee beansHigh67
Hot chocolateHigh63
MatchaMedium51
Specialty coffeeLow15

Search shows who is curious, not who buys. A score of 100 means the state that searches most for that drink.

Google Trends, last 12 months, pulled 24 October 2026Search against our orders

Before you start

  1. 1

    Budget your drink stock with the rest of your opening costs. Taste a sample kit before a bulk order.

    What it costs to open a cafe
  2. 2

    Keep hot chocolate on in summer as a cold chocolate. It is a menu problem, not a winter problem.

    Cold chocolate for cafes
  3. 3

    Price a new drink against your own cappuccino, not against its cost.

    Pricing a new menu item

What cafes near you buy from us

28 cafe accounts in the West buy from us. Here is what they buy.

Hot chocolate 93%Coffee blends 5%Other 2%

One Pune-based chain with 24 outlets makes up most of these accounts. Share of order value across Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. Our data: 59 cafe and restaurant accounts since July 2025. It shows where our sales team reached, not all of India's demand. What 59 cafes ordered

Free tools, real help

What next?

Take the plan with you, or talk it through with our team.

Get the plan for Pune by email

We send a one-page copy of your plan, and one short email the month before your season turns.

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Where the numbers come from
  1. Milk: NDDB, milk available per person per day by state, 2023-24 (India 471 g). NDDB divides milk produced in a state by its people, so small city states such as Delhi show low numbers.
  2. Search: Google Trends, India, by state, last 12 months, pulled 24 October 2026. 100 is the state with the highest share of searches.
  3. Seasons: Open-Meteo ERA5 daily weather 2021 to 2025, averaged by month. Hot chocolate season means average lows of 18 C or less. Cold coffee season means average highs of 34 C or more. Monsoon means 150 mm of rain or more in the month.
  4. Habit: Coffee Board of India and CRISIL, Coffee consumption trends in India 2023. Hill crowd: Himachal Pradesh 2017 visitor survey.
  5. Our orders: 59 cafe and restaurant accounts that bought from us since July 2025, pulled 24 October 2026. Percentages and counts only. They show where our sales team and partners reached, not all of India's demand.
  6. Pincodes: the first digits place the state. Weather comes from the nearest of 48 cities.