First Starbucks opens in India

Amazingly, until this week, there were no Starbucks in India. Lots of homegrown coffee shops like Barista and Cafe Coffee Day, but few international brands. The reasons are the complex rules surrounding what is called FDI - Foreign Direct Investment - something that is bizarrely controversial in india. The debate is led by the rich elites who run india, and who don't want any outside competition interfering with their businesses.

To get round this, Starbucks have teamed up with the biggest and most well known of these elites- Tata. Tata is undoubtedly one of india's best run companies, but one that also does very well out of india's myriad of rules being one of the few companies that can through and round them.

Anyhow, the upshot is that finally Starbucks is coming to india, and the first one has opened just round the corner from my office in Fort, Mumbai! It's been done amazingly, and I can get a great decaf americano with a drop of hot foam. Haven't managed to have lunch there yet, as by lunchtime, there's a 2 hour queue snaking down the street with TV cameras still trained on it.

Exciting times and with 80 more stores being rolled out, india won't be quite the same again.