Starbucks opens first India store in Mumbai

Starbucks lovers who travel will probably be happy to read this. But does this light "news" story deserve so much copy when reporting on serious news gets many fewer lines? Is this an example of advertising masking itself as news?

Starbucks chose the historic Elphinstone Building in the Horniman Circle neighborhood of south Mumbai, not far from a vast Hermes shop and a stately local park maintained with funds from the family foundation of Italian designer Ermenegildo Zegna

That sounds like lofty company, I wonder what image Schultz et al. are trying to project and how does it relate to the Starbucks brand?

And they tied up with a huge Indian conglomerate, to help them "crack the code"? I would imagine that the competition is going to be stiff in India.

"We've been trying to in a sense crack the code here,"Schultz said. The company decided early on they needed to enter India with a local partner, as they did in China.

Maybe the Indian company will source better coffee than the stuff they sell here in Japan. It would be nice if they would put some of the Indian themed pastries on the menu here, too. I recall that they used to have good fresh coconut macaroons when they first opened, but phased those out soon afterward for more expensive and fancier cakes.

Schultz came to India in November 2010 to begin "substantive conversations" with the salt-to-SUVs Tata conglomerate, which were followed by meetings in Seattle and a January 2011 coffee sourcing agreement with Tata Coffee.