Can I get an Americano in a Sabya cup?

Sabyasachi Mukherjee

Every Indian has a story about their first Starbucks run when travelling abroad. To a chorus of anecdotes which predates the coffee chain's India launch in 2012, it often involves feeling nervous as eyes scrolled up and down, bewildered, at the beverages menu while the queue behind you swelled in annoyance. In lighter moments, we might have shared a celebrity name against our coffee order, or in this writer's case, tucked away her first rewards card in a nostalgia shoebox.

Couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee associates Starbucks with his breakfast haunt during his time in New York in 2012. "So when one of the brands that you've grown up with, comes to you and says if you want to do a collaboration… forget Sabyasachi as a brand, think of Sabya as a person, for me it was amazing," he says in lieu of talking about his new collaboration with Tata Starbucks to release a limited-edition range of ceramic cups and stainless-steel tumblers. "I said, let's create something that already has a strong visual connect, so we have used our signature chintz prints inspired by the Sundarbans and the royal Bengal Tiger, but spread across three colourways," This partnership also marks the company's first foray into Indian fashion although internationally, they have teamed up with designer brands like Rodarte, Kenzo and Kate Spade. "In the initial phase of a brand journey, you're trying to bring what Starbucks stands for internationally, the aspirational value. You want to bring the connection, and we have tried to do that in a manner where you connect with the Indian community," Sushant Dash, CEO at Tata Starbucks Private Limited, explains to mid-day. "Then you start looking at collaborations to deal with [offering] something new and different to your consumer." From a merchandise point of view, Dash says, the company not only wanted to collaborate with iconic brands but also wanted to bring a traditional Indian thing in a contemporary way. "And who better than Sabya to do that?"

Coffee mugs and holders from the Sabyasachi + Starbucks range

The Sabyasachi Mukherjee mythology is as much about starry Bollywood weddings (stakes are riding high on just who Alia Bhatt will pick to design her wedding trousseau) and bridal couture as it is about his collaborations. So, the question really is: how many collaborations are too many? "Given the pace of the world that we are in and the kind of demographics that we are addressing, it's not about how many, but it is about what. And as we continue to answer the ‘what', we will continue to do collaborations," Mukherjee reasons. He adds: "What you're celebrating here is iconism that can probably travel across geographies and economic barriers, which through Sabyasachi, unfortunately, we can't do as we are a luxury brand. Sometimes through these collaborations, you can reach out to a larger audience and create a certain amount of wish fulfillment for them."

The couturier's previous collaboration with a Swedish clothing retailer is a topic that continues to cradle endless debates, in the media and the online community. The one where Mukherjee broke the internet. "I'll tell you the funniest H&M story that I'll write about in my book one day," he says recalling an incident with a fellow passenger on a flight during the pandemic. "She [passenger] was trying to keep a distance from me, until the air hostess offered me a beverage. I slipped my mask off and she gasped, ‘Sabyasachi! Sir, aap arthritis walon ke liye kuch karo' [referring to the online sale]." Here Dash assures: "This [limited-edition merchandise] is not about the fastest finger first because it's not online."

The limited-edition range of ceramic mugs and tumblers, priced between Rs 1600 and Rs 2500, will be on sale from April 12 at all Starbucks stores in India. Proceeds from the sales will go towards supporting Educate Girls, an NGO that focuses on mobilising communities for girls' education in India's rural and educationally backward areas.

Coffee order for Sabya

"I only drink Americano. But here is my big problem and it is something that I'm trying to avoid right now because my sin is a caramel frappuccino."