Lichan Humstoe
Été Coffee celebrates 8th anniversary
Morung Express News
Kohima | July 1
As Été Coffee, Northeast India’s pioneering specialty coffee roasting company celebrates its 8th Anniversary on July 2; it stands as a testament to overcoming skepticism and achieving remarkable growth and success.
Marking a new chapter from its humble beginning since July 2, 2016 as a local brand, Été Coffee with its brand slogan ‘Justice a Cup’ today has, expanded its presence nationwide, both physical and online.
Lichan Humtsoe, the visionary CEO of Été Coffee, with a bold dream to transform the region from ‘tea drinkers to coffee consumers’ embarked on this journey with a modest initially investment of Rs 6400/-.
A professional photographer as well, he left his government job pursue his passion for coffee industry, leading Été Coffee to its current success.
Vision and journey
Speaking with The Morung Express, Humtsoe shared his vision on venturing into this unconventional profession which was driven by the realisation that in Nagaland, specifically in Kohima, almost 90% of the population relies on the government economy, encompassing farmers, business owners, politicians, contractors and more.
“Our endeavour is to demonstrate to ourselves that we’re capable of not only sustaining, but flourishing in business independently, without reliance on governmental support, external assistance such as financial institutions, or inheritances from previous generations” he stated.
“And for the past eight years, we’ve come this far entirely independently, without any support or resources from external agencies, whether monetary or otherwise” said the young CEO brimming with pride.
Today, Été Coffee has 27 local youths employed under its wing, as the CEO said, ‘we believe in quality employment rather than numbers.’
Community & financial impact
Through this company, Été Coffee is helping local coffee farmers as it sourcing ‘nanolot and microlot’ coffees from the Naga Hills f Mon, Wokha, Mokokchung, Kohima etc, that are shade grown by the Naga farmers.
With only 10-20 customers in the first month, today Été Coffee boasts of more than one lakh coffee consumers, making his dream of transforming tea drinkers to coffee consumers, a reality.
Sharing the revenue, Humtsoe recalled of making less than ₹3000/- in the first month to ₹1 lakh in the first year, which has increased to whopping ₹3.85 cr in the financial year 2023-24.
It may be mention that Été Coffee has two roastery, a coffee school & laboratory, four research farms and two cafés wherein 80% of the sale through offline and 20% online.
Commemorating its 8th anniversary, it is re-launching its e-commerce site and also some new products on July 2.
Pros & Cons of business
Sharing his experience into the business, Humstoe observed that Nagaland being uncharted water when it comes to private sectors, literally any kind of business survives. Besides, he said, Été Coffee had an early bird advantage with minimum cost of operation for a small scale business, and zero market share competition.
The disadvantages, as he said was mostly that society still discourages getting into private sectors besides lack of basic infrastructures/amenities like water, electricity, transportation, logistics and importantly, professional human resources.
“As we enter the growth stage of our company, challenges in scaling up become increasingly apparent. This is largely due to a dismantled ecosystem within the industry itself, as well as in related industries” viewed Humtsoe.
Eight years achievements
“To begin with, our biggest achievement was to convert the region from Tea drinkers to Coffee consumers, although we have miles to go” said the CEO.
He said it has helped built more than 25 cafés across northeast, offering consultancy services, training via its Coffee School, selling machines and coffee beans; securing a partnership with multiple cafes, which significantly boosted its brand recognition and sales volume and trained 223 individuals through coffee school.
“This partnership not only validated our product quality, but also opened doors to new opportunities for growth” Humtsoe stated.
Another noteworthy achievement, he said it the Specialty Roasting business among the first few in India with bare minimum as initial capital (we would love to think that we are second in India).
However, the best feeling, as he described is “when we keep hearing from coffee fellows across the country that they got inspired from us.”
Business challenges
Sharing some of the challenges it faced initially, Humtsoe recalled that the very first day of the grand opening of its Roastery& Cafe went downhill, when it was forced to shut down by one Naga Political Group.
“They threatened to take us away and at best remove our roasting machine immediately, which actually took 14 abled men to have it moved in manually. And, it is not something you could just pull it out at your own whimsy and fancy” he recounted.
Also in 2018, Humtsoe said, the business almost shut down as all the coffee green source from where it regularly buy got blocked by big traders.
Fondly recalling the initial struggles with a smile, the CEO said, “Initially, it was a one man company. I used to be the one taking orders, I would roast, pack it myself and off to India post. Shipping used to be free PAN India and often, the shipping cost was around Rs 145/- and the overall product cost is Rs 70/-. And to rub salt to the wound, it would take at least 4 to 7 months to reach the consignee.”
Besides, he said, his personal decision to abstain taking help from an external funding agency got them into ‘innumerable sleepless nights and hurdle’ to secure additional funding to expand its operations.
“When we expanded to our second Cafe, we took the space and didn’t have the capital to work on it, so we kept lying there without any activity for at least 5 months before we started renovating” he recalled.
“Also in the first year of Été, I remember, we could barely roast 2kgs in a day (from 9am to 6pm). And whenever there is a power cut, we end up roasting till 11pm. It was a nightmare situation” shared Humtsoe.
Photos credit (Lichan Humstoe)
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