When the first Starbucks opened in 2012, it was a big occasion. This was a decade after coffee chain Mocha had created a stir. By then, the coffee (and dessert) culture — where patrons could mull over their cuppas for hours — had seeped into the city’s lifestyle choices. In fact, with the global coffee chain, one didn’t need to order at all. It set the tone and over the years, it became an ‘office’ space for freelancers, to hold meetings, and where students would huddle over assignments.

After a decade-long presence in India, last month, the first outpost of Starbucks located in Elphinstone Building at Fort transformed into the first Reserve store for premium offerings in the country. While offering a tour of the cafe, a staffer shared that the coffee is bought in small batches/reserves, freshly ground at the cafe and brewed in front of patrons.  As we follow her around the store, we gaze at the installation above the monolith coffee island in pastel green and pink. Here, customers can take a high chair and watch the coffee brewing in chemex, siphon, French press, pour over and the whizzing coffee machine. She points to the curly installation above the station. “This is the golden cloud,” she announces, parroting the storyline from a training session, we guess. She continues, “Reserve coffee is usually grown on higher altitudes in mountains, amid clouds. So this is the golden cloud, and we are the coffee beans.”