The erstwhile Mysore royal family has entered India’s specialty coffee segment with the launch of Berunda Coffee, unveiled at a royal soirée in Karnataka on July 3, 2026.
The brand draws its name from the Gandaberunda, the mythical two-headed bird that serves as the official emblem of the Wadiyar dynasty and, by extension, the state of Karnataka.
The launch positions the nearly 700-year-old royal house as a fresh stakeholder in Karnataka’s coffee economy, the state that anchors India’s coffee-producing map.
The Coffee Board of India’s post-blossom estimates peg Karnataka’s 2025-26 output at roughly 2,80,275 tonnes, nearly 71% of the country’s projected national production of 4,03,000 tonnes.
India’s overall coffee market was valued at INR 15,653 crore in 2023 and is projected to reach INR 21,039 crore by 2030, growing at a CAGR of approximately 4.3%, even as nearly 70% of the country’s annual crop continues to be exported rather than consumed at home.
On the branded powdered coffee side, Nestlé’s Nescafé continues to lead with an estimated 40% market share, followed by Hindustan Unilever’s Bru at roughly 32%, while Tata Consumer Products, CCL Products, Continental, Levista and newer direct-to-consumer entrants such as Sleepy Owl and Blue Tokai compete for the remainder.
Berunda Coffee’s entry adds a heritage-led narrative to a specialty segment already occupied by players such as Blue Tokai, Third Wave Coffee, Araku and Flying Squirrel, each working to shift India’s largely instant-coffee households toward single-origin and estate-identified brews.
Editors Note
Royal-family entries into consumer categories are not new to Karnataka, but they carry a specific commercial logic when the category is coffee, a crop the state has grown since Baba Budan’s seven seeds reached the Chandragiri hills nearly four centuries ago.
Berunda Coffee arrives into a market that is structurally lopsided: India exports nearly 70% of what it grows
It’s per-capita domestic consumption remains among the lowest of any major producing nation, and the branded coffee market is still dominated by two multinational-origin instant coffee brands controlling over 70% combined share.
A heritage brand like Berunda rooted in Karnataka’s own coffee belt has a genuine white space to build a premium, story-led alternative if only it can move beyond launch-event visibility into consistent retail and quick-commerce availability.
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