Anything But Coffee

Anything But Coffee

You would be surprised to know that some famous coffee house that has the most branches in Thailand just 30% of their income is from coffee.  Majority  of their income is from foods and other beverages,  both  alcoholic  and non  alcoholic drinks.   Don’t  give up when you heard of this because Starbucks,  successful coffee house chain still has the majority of their  income from their coffee.   However,  it  is  very  interesting  that  the  big  green  is  also  trying  to add more  food and beverage  items  in  to  their menu.  Now, let’s see what else can be add to your  drinks menu. 

Black English Tea

   Tea is already serve in most of the coffee house but most of them do not pay much attention to the qual-

ity of their tea.  We often see bag of loose black tea, same as the one sell in  supermarket, serve in many coffee house.  Because customers know the cost of  this loose tea; therefore, coffee house cannot boost up the sell price.  The taste of these kind of tea has less aroma than leaves tea which more suitable for your premium coffee house.

You will not see the use of loose tea bag in any premium coffee house in other countries. Especially fruit tea some even use real fruit to make their fruit tea, it can give more natural taste to the tea rather than using flavored tea bag.

Leaves tea are available with and without bags. Tea pots are usually clear class so customers can see tea leaves. In Taiwan, they serve fruit tea such as apply, orange, and cantaloupe by putting diced

real fruit in the clear tea pot which has small separate compartment for it. This menu is very popular there.

Japanese Green Tea

Japanese Green Tea  is also very popular and  it  is one of  the main menu for the coffee house.  Starbucks has first started selling this in Taiwan and it  becomes  popular  throughout Asia  and  the world  included Thailand. Preparation process is not difficult and it can be served hot or cold or iced blended drink.

Chinese Tea

The successful of Chinese green tea in Thailand was brought by Oishi group who introduced Chinese green tea to Thai consumer market and change the idea that tea is the beverage for elder people.  Taste of tea that is available in the market is pretty much the same, we has to add more flavor in order to tell the differences.  It would take a long time for Chinese tea to become popular that people can tell the different in term of quality.  However, see Taiwanese  and Thai  oldest  tea manufacture had  re-image  their products and make it suitable for young people, plus acknowledge them advantages that good for health of tea drinking. Add some Chinese tea in your menu  it’s not the bad idea.

Italian Soda

Coke and Pepsi are popular drinks but the reason that you don’t want to sell these beverages in your café is because you can’t make much margin since it so obvious when customer can see the price difference from the convenience store next door.  So if you want to sell carbonated drinks and become more profitable you should consider selling Italian Soda.

Italian soda can be made with many flavored syrups which are avail-able  in  the market by mixing  it with soda water and  ice.   You can either make carbonated fruity drinks like raspberry and strawberry or carbonated cocktail flavors like Pinacolada and Blue Curacao.  You can even add one or more flavored syrups to make your own signature drinks. One of the simple drink is just add Cherry flavored syrup into coke, this will make cherry coke which you can’t find any where here in Thailand.

Fruit Smoothies

Hot weather in Thailand along with taste and fruits benefit make fruit Smooth-ies popular in coffee house throughout the nation.  In spite of difficulty of fruit preparation and short store up time, some coffee house decided not to sell it.  Right now you can use frozen fruit and fresh fruits that go through special process to make them last longer.  Besides, Smoothies can be made with mixture of sorbet, yogurt, or smoothie powder base which  is much easier.  Protein and Vitamin are also another value added to your smoothies.  (Victor Liew, my friend owner of Mad about Juice who looks forever young  told me that the secret is in his drink, don’t believe him - try it)

Gelato/Ice Cream

It’s quite common for selling Gelato (Italian ice-cream) in the coffee bar in Italy.  Gelato can be sell day and night in Italy.  During dinner before having  main course, sorbet is served as a mouth washer and after dinner, you can  have with or without alcohol gelato.

Gelato seem to be good companion of Espresso start from they came from same origin. The unique taste and variety of flavor make differenciate from the industrial ice-cream that your customer can get from any conve-nience stores. 

And everybody love ice-cream.put an ice-cream show case in your café from one of the Gelato supplier will make the whole family of your customer happy.     (to be continue)