Coffee is a highly appreciated product in Romania, but the vast majority of consumers within the country do not have a well-developed coffee culture. The product is consumed mainly as an energizer, being a habit that is performed mechanically and that many cannot give up. Under these circumstances, the taste, the flavor, the origin or the mode of preparation become secondary, or even insignificant elements.
However, there are people, especially young adults (20-45 years old), who are increasingly interested in the products that they consume, in their origin, in the care that is being put into cultivating and/or preparing them, and even in the way in which these products are transported to Romania and reach their destined plate or glass. Automatically, along with this awareness, over the past few years, there has been an increase in connaiseurs related to certain products like: sweets, cheeses, meat, beer, wine or coffee.
Thus, with the development of this type of consumers, specialized hot spots such as delicacy shops, wineries, craft breweries and coffee shops also started to make their way on the main Romanian boulevards. In terms of coffee, Narcoffee Roasters proposes a unique concept that brings together the entire complexity of coffee within one simple drink. Customers learn everything about the coffee they choose, from the country it came from (and the selections are extremely exotic), to the authorized farm that processed it, to the route it took until reaching Romania, to the preparation process and finally to the way in which various aromas and coffee types are originally mixed.
The staff working in the coffee shops which is directly involved in the processing phase and the implicity delivery of the coffee in the customer's cup is composed of specialists with prizes and attestations in the field of frying and preparing the product. Thus, with such credentials, the concept was in no way set out to fail. Narcoffee Roasters registered a turnover of about EUR 650,000 in 2017, while the developers of the concept are planning to open 15 franchises over the next 3 years, after initial successes registered in Cluj, Bucharest and even Prague, where the chain recently oppened a franchise, establishing its first non-Romanian shop.
Sources: https://narcoffee.com/#modern-organic-thai
Claudiu Bolcu
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