Business & Finance

Rishwin Devaya Leaves Corporate Job to Turn Family Coffee Estate into ₹2‑Crore Brand

By Sneha Biswas

Rishwin Devaya quit his corporate job to return to his family’s century‑old coffee estate in Coorg, Karnataka, and launch Riverside Coffee. The brand has shifted from selling beans to commodity markets and exporters to a direct‑to‑consumer model. Today it earns ₹2 crore in annual revenue, growing 30 % year‑on‑year.

Riverside Coffee traces its roots to 1898, when Devaya’s great‑great‑grandfather moved to a portion of the family estate to tend paddy fields. A dispute with his brother led him to settle at the estate’s farthest end, according to Devaya in an interview with Livemint.

After working in the wine industry, Devaya saw how growers could build a brand around their own produce. He asked himself, “We already have our own coffee estate, so why couldn’t we do the same with coffee?” He wanted to control cultivation, processing, roasting, branding and sales, adopting an estate‑to‑cup model inspired by vineyard‑to‑bottle approaches.

The transition required significant investment in infrastructure, processing and marketing, with no guaranteed return. “My father still occasionally asks the very practical question: ‘If we can sell this coffee today and know exactly what we’ll earn, why are we holding it back?’” Devaya said.

Riverside now sells through direct sales, wholesale, online retail, a café and visitor experiences at the estate. Direct sales to cafés and consumers present challenges, as buyers have varying taste preferences, budgets, equipment and brewing methods. Devaya notes that a bean’s flavor can change with machine, grind, water, recipe or brewing method, and stresses the need to educate buyers about varieties, brewing techniques and flavor profiles.

The company has also introduced Excelsa, adding it to a sampler alongside Arabica and Robusta. Roughly 58 % of monthly revenue comes from coffee sales, with the remaining 42 % from wholesale, retail, café sales, estate experiences and miscellaneous sources; online retail accounts for 17 %.

Like other growers, Riverside faces unpredictable weather. The estate experienced a rainfall shortage this year after near‑ideal conditions last year and excessive rain the year before. “Coffee is an extremely sensitive crop. Too much rain can be a problem, too little rain can be a problem; the same applies to heat and sunlight,” the fifth‑generation owner said. He added, “What worries me most is not simply that the climate is getting warmer; it is that the seasons we once relied on are becoming harder to rely on.”

For now, the brand focuses on marketing and distribution rather than expanding through physical locations.