There is something deeply familiar about the aroma of South Indian filter coffee dark, roasted, faintly sweet that has the power to stop a traveller mid-stride. Love & Latte, the Mumbai-based café chain under the Sachde Foods & Beverages umbrella, is betting on exactly that instinct. The brand has quietly been making its presence felt at Indian airports, and its latest chapter is one that coffee lovers across the country are going to want to pay attention to.
It began at the South Spice terminal at Navi Mumbai Airport , an apt launchpad for a concept rooted in Southern India’s most iconic brew. Love & Latte introduced its filter coffee offering here as part of a curated airport experience, and the response, by all accounts, has been nothing short of enthusiastic. Travellers rushing to catch early morning flights found themselves pausing for a cup, and those with layovers discovered a reason to linger. The terminal became something of a quiet test bed for what the brand had in mind for the rest of the country.
Spreading Wings: Ahmedabad, Mangalore, and Kanpur
Building on that momentum, Love & Latte is now gearing up to bring its South Indian filter coffee experience to three new airports Ahmedabad, Mangalore, and Kanpur. The expansion is significant not just in scale, but in intent. Taking filter coffee to Ahmedabad and Kanpur, cities not traditionally associated with this style of brewing, is a statement of confidence. It signals that the brand believes the appeal of a well-made filter coffee transcends regional identity that it is, at its heart, a universally comforting drink.
Mangalore, of course, is practically filter coffee’s home ground a city where the morning ritual of a steaming tumbler of kaapi is nearly sacred. Love & Latte’s arrival there will be watched closely, as much for its quality as for how it integrates into a culture that takes its coffee very seriously indeed.
Classic Roots, Contemporary Branches
What makes Love & Latte’s filter coffee offering particularly interesting is the range it brings to a format traditionally defined by its purity. Yes, the classic South Indian filter coffee is very much at the heart of the menu bold, rich, and brewed the traditional way. But the brand has also crafted a set of flavoured variants that introduce hazelnut, vanilla, and caramel into the fold, creating a bridge between the familiar and the experimental. It is the kind of thinking that keeps loyal customers satisfied while drawing in a new generation of café-goers who might otherwise reach for a latte or a cappuccino.
And then there is the iced filter coffee range a smart, timely addition given India’s climate and the growing appetite for cold coffee formats. Iced filter coffee retains all the complexity of the original brew while delivering the refreshment that travellers in transit so often crave. For the weary flier navigating a warm afternoon departure, it offers exactly the kind of relief that a hot beverage simply cannot.
Beyond the Cup: An Experience in Transit
For Love & Latte, however, this is never simply about the coffee. The brand has consistently positioned itself around the idea that a great café experience is about how it makes you feel unhurried, cared for, at home even when you are far from it. Airports, with their particular brand of transient anxiety, are perhaps the spaces that most need this kind of warmth.
The brand’s airport foray is built on a philosophy of elevating the traveller’s experience offering quality that feels considered rather than convenient, and service that feels genuinely hospitable. In a landscape of airport F&B that often defaults to the generic and the hurried, Love & Latte is quietly insisting that travellers deserve better.
As the brand prepares to open at its new airport locations, the broader story it is telling is one about India’s evolving café culture one that is increasingly willing to celebrate its own culinary heritage while reimagining it for a new context. A tumbler of filter coffee at 30,000 feet may still be some time away, but in the terminals of Ahmedabad, Mangalore, and Kanpur, that first sip is now a lot closer than it used to be.
For more details: https://lovenlatte.com/
