India, March 28 -- To know how far India's cafe culture has come, just pop into your local Barista. This, roughly, is where it all began, in the year 2000. Young people in big cities had satellite TV. They'd watched Chandler, Phoebe and the Friends gang chill at Central Perk. So, when something similar opened locally, there were queues, crowds and much chatter on how to pronounce espresso. (Ess-press-oh, not Ex-press-oh? Oh!)

Let's zip through the quarter-century that followed. Major franchises got our attention (Hello, Costa Coffee and Di Bella; bye-bye Gloria Jean's, Le Pain What-idien?). Cafes dotted every al fresco nook. Cappuccino came in huge mugs. We ordered off chalkboard menus. At homegrown chains such as Mocha, the coffee was g...