Anish Kale

BSc Arch student takes an intentional decision to drop out & becomes a barista, uses a fellowship as a launchpad during the lockdown to joining one of India's top coffee trainer's startup as a core team member

Anish Kale is a content creator, a coffee enthusiast and a lifelong learner who deeply cares about bringing recognition of Indian Specialty Coffee, and the farmers who grow it.

Since he was in 12th standard, Anish Kale first started practicing coffee art as a hobby, and by the second year of college he was in love with coffee and started a coffee art page called Homemade Barista.

To pursue this love, he bravely took a leap of faith and committed to building different business competencies to transition from being a coffee enthusiast to a professional in the coffee industry. Anish decided to take a gap year from studying architecture to explore his passion for coffee.

“The toughest thing to convince my family was to take a gap year from college to learn about coffee and experience being a barista. I had the support of my friends and some faculty but had to convince my parents and other relatives because dropping out from something well recognised, and picking up something that no one knows about was a risky move.” Kudos to Anish’s parents for supporting him in taking this unconventional decision. They could see his level of determination and believed that his commitment was genuine.

One day, Anish took his mother to Third Wave Coffee Roasters in Koregaon Park, Pune to have some coffee and told her that he wanted to work there. With curiosity and surprise, Mrs. Kale asked, “You will be serving people and cleaning tables here?”

“Yes”, said Anish. “That is a part of the service but what I actually want to do is to brew coffee behind the counter.”

Having their own family business, she was naturally hesitant but eventually agreed.

Six months later, as the momentum caught on, his parents bought into Anish’s vision and Anish dropped out of college and to completely focus on his journey in the coffee industry. “By that time, even my parents were seeing that I am actively doing something in the coffee industry,” proudly shared Anish.

Along with learning about coffee through his work as a barista, to be able to positively contribute to the coffee industry and bring awareness of Indian Specialty Coffee, Anish sensed that he needed to build different competencies like marketing, branding, communications, collaborating and many others that he did not know of.

Anish naturally builds connections with people around him, and his barista experience made him better at connecting with customers who would visit the Third Wave Coffee Roasters. Some of his customers happened to be a part of a year-long student entrepreneurship program, called the Enterprise India Fellowship, and as Anish learned more about it, he decided to join it. He shared, “My parents and I were convinced that this journey (of building competencies by working on different projects) would help me contribute to the family business in the long run, along with making my own career (in the coffee industry).”

“I am a keen learner and I love to work on different types of projects which help me grow as a human being,” added Anish.

Over the span of the Fellowship, he worked on more than four projects including in-house Enterprise projects like #karo & the passion project grant, and projects with clients like News Shuttle and Dharohar. “He has been someone who has given tremendous effort to any task he took up,” shared Yusuf Hakim, Co-Founder of the Enterprise India Fellowship, who has observed Anish go the extra mile to calmly make sure the projects are executed smoothly and build relationships with the people he works with.

“No matter how hard the situation is, when I talk with Anish, I feel that energy and relaxation,” added Rohini Mistari, the Enterprise Fellowship Coordinator.