• January 30, 2012

Starbucks Corp. and Tata Global Beverages Ltd. have finalized an alliance that opens the way for Starbucks to launch cafes in India.

Starbucks already had an agreement with a Tata division, Tata Coffee Ltd., to source and roast premium coffee beans from India, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Now Tata Global and Starbucks have formed an equal joint venture for cafes in India, one of the few large markets thus far untapped by Starbucks. 

Coffee has become more popular in tea-drinking India with the growth of the middle class. Indians' consumption of coffee has grown by 80%, to an estimated 108,000 metric tons, over the last decade, according to government statistics. 

Starbucks' largest coffee chain competitor in the country will be Cafe Coffee Day, a unit of Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co.