NPR

Homegrown Indian Beverage Industry Takes On Cola Giants With Nostalgic Flavors

A handful of new Indian beverage companies are offering traditional Indian tastes in neat, hygienic packs and bottles. The industry is growing fast and already competing with big soda companies.
Pomegranate juice sold by Raw Pressery, a company that markets its drinks as healthy and devoid of additives and flavors.

A few weeks ago, my husband brought home a bottle of chilled beverage that wasn't on the grocery list I had sent him out with. It was a bottle of pre-packaged sugarcane juice – a novelty in a market flooded with bottled soda and mango drinks. But one sip of the drink and I was transported back to my childhood summers.

I grew up in the southern city of Chennai, where summers are scorching. And sugarcane juice was a popular seasonal cooler. I would stop for a talls the plump cane stalks through his machine and turn its big wheels with his hands. A pale green juice would flow out on to a steel container on the other side.

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