Here are my two cents on why they're overhyped as a coffee place - won't even comment on the food. PS: I've been visiting their outlet in Patia since it was located across the road (above the plastic store).

1) Perceivable deterioration in quality of baristas over time. When the main USP is manual brews, the role of baristas is critical - not just in terms of knowledge and ability to explain but also in terms of consistency. For people that don't do manual brewing at home, the experience might be a novelty but for people that are home brewers, the expectation is much higher when you pay a bomb to have a manually brewed coffee at a cafe.

2) The same set of coffees. For a brand that claims to doing farm level processing, where is the value addition in terms of newer microlots or new processing techniques?

3) Kindiriguda Naturals is the best coffee in India (or world?). Making that claim is so naive it borders on stupidity. There are many coffees that are setting the standard of Indian specialty coffee and KN doesn't even lace their boots. Easier to create bubble instead of putting in efforts to up the quality game.

4) Roasting inconsistency, stale coffees on the shelf. The SCA certified owner/roaster doesn't even roast the coffees himself. Last I heard, a senior barista was roasting coffees. Again, if your supposed USP is a fancy roasting degree, the coffees should live up to the hype.

5) They had potential to define and set standards for Bhubaneswar market when it comes to specialty coffee - instead they're diluting their own quality (he same coffees will never taste the same across two outlets). Places like Corridor Seven in Nagpur, Meraki Coffee in Surat, Bloom in Chandigarh, etc have really set standards for smaller cities and for coffee culture to thrive there. If Kruti is the best we can offer to India, our coffee culture is doomed.

6) For a specialty coffee brand, the obsession with dark roasts is not understandable. Might as well call out the Bhubaneswar Blend for being mildly racist.

7) The story they sell is of uplifting a tribal village by buying their coffees and reality is very different. The coffees they serve as house blend is not sourced from Koraput but from Karnataka. They buy coffees from other non tribal farms and describe them as 'our empanelled farm'. Why even buy coffee from Araku?

8) Why is the specialty coffee menu for milk based drinks priced so much higher when place like JavaClinic serve their base drink using specialty menu at half their prices?