Subko Mini at VegNonVeg, Hyderabad: A Small Counter, a Larger Subko

I went to Subko’s new Mini expecting coffee and a look around. I came home thinking about the people behind a brand, the strange ways a small coffee community connects, and whether I had just described my side project to one of Subko’s partners with the energy of a mad scientist explaining his latest experiment.

It was an excellent Saturday.

The invitation had come through my friend Newton Lewis, a familiar face in the specialty coffee circles I know. I am neither a reporter nor an influencer. I am a coffee enthusiast with a day job in technology and a growing project called BrewLib. Somehow, that combination had landed me at an opening in Jubilee Hills, talking about coffee, design and the sort of business Subko wants to become.

The new space sits inside VegNonVeg (Veg Non Veg, or VNV to regulars), the sneaker store on Road No. 22 in Jubilee Hills [9]: a name that still sounds more like a question about lunch than a destination for sneakers. Inside, though, the relationship makes sense. Coffee boxes occupy metal shelves, footwear lines the walls, and both invite a closer look. There is plenty to photograph. As the day unfolded, there was considerably more to talk about.

Hyderabad, in miniature

Subko calls these smaller spaces Minis, and this one brings a concentrated version of its world into the sneaker store. The coffee counter sits against a broad window, with greenery outside and the menu arranged above it. A turquoise espresso machine anchors one end; chocolate, snacks and packaged coffee fill out the picture. The footprint is compact, but it offers several reasons to linger.

VegNonVeg’s own description places sneakers alongside streetwear, art, music and creative expression. [1] That makes it a natural setting for a coffee company with such a strong visual identity. The shelves feel like neighbouring interests rather than unrelated concessions. You might arrive for a drop and leave remembering a coffee, or arrive for a coffee and spend longer looking around than you intended.

My understanding from the visit was that this opening brought Subko to nineteen outlets: eighteen in India and one in Dubai. Its official locations page confirms the Dubai presence at Alserkal Avenue, alongside its existing Hyderabad address at District 150. [2] The total is a snapshot from the opening, rather than a number that will necessarily remain current.

For me, the new Mini also brought back a larger question: when would Hyderabad get a Subko flagship? There is growing excitement around specialty coffee in the city, certainly in the conversations I find myself having. Another opening adds to that energy. But as someone who already visits Subko here, I am also curious about what its fuller expression might look like in Hyderabad.

That question stayed with me when I sat down with Neha Joshi. Our conversation offered a better sense of the priorities behind the expansion. It also shifted my attention from the number of outlets to what Subko wants each of them to represent.

A showcase for the people behind it

Neha is a partner overseeing strategic growth and operations, and has been involved since Subko’s earliest days. [3] [8] We talked about its direction, its philosophy and the place it sees for itself in coffee. What stood out was her account of a company comfortable with being niche: interested in developing that identity, without treating hundreds of outlets on every corner as the inevitable destination.

I found that refreshing. Growth is an easy thing to discuss in numbers; identity is harder to preserve through the decisions those numbers demand. What I heard from Neha was a willingness to lean into the qualities people already associate with Subko, including the specificity that might make it less immediately familiar to everyone walking through the door.

The part that stayed with me most concerned the people behind the finished product. As we spoke, I came away with the impression that Subko wanted to make more room for them in the story: farmers cultivating coffee, producers working through processing, roasters developing the beans, and bakers rolling dough by hand. The brand could be the place where their work became visible.

In my head, I kept returning to the idea of a showcase. A customer might recognise Subko first, but ideally that recognition would lead somewhere further along the chain, towards a person, a farm or a particular craft. I liked the ambition of using the brand’s visibility to direct attention towards the work that makes it possible.

That is my reading of our conversation, not a claim that an afternoon visit can establish how recognition or value is distributed throughout a business. Still, it gave me something concrete to consider while looking around. An estate name on a coffee card and a barista explaining a brew can make that philosophy tangible in a way a broad statement about craftsmanship cannot.

Subko’s history supplies useful context. It began in Mumbai in 2020 with specialty coffee and craft bread. The Hard Copy’s account of founder Rahul Reddy’s collaboration with designer Aniruddh Mehta describes a brand deliberately rooted in the subcontinent’s cultural references. The name itself connects the idea of “for all” with “subcontinent.” [4] That ambition was visible on the window behind the counter; Neha’s explanation gave me another way to read it.

The flagship question remained open. I had come away with a clearer sense of what I would want a future Hyderabad flagship to contain: the same attention to people and particulars, with more space to explore them.

My own small experiment

Somewhere in that conversation, I explained BrewLib.

Calling it “a coffee LLM in the making” was my attempt to compress a rather large idea into a sentence. BrewLib is the coffee project I am building alongside my main job: a way to help people understand the beans they have and turn that information into a useful brewing starting point. The longer ambition is bigger, but that practical problem is where it begins.

I am interested in the gap between discovering a coffee and knowing what to do with it. A bag can give you an estate, a variety and a fascinating process description, yet leave you wondering how to make tomorrow morning’s cup. Building something that helps connect those pieces has become my particular coffee obsession.

At the time, explaining it to Neha seemed entirely reasonable. Later, replaying the afternoon at home, I wondered whether I had sounded like someone unveiling a slightly overambitious Frankenstein experiment. She listened intently, and I took her response as encouraging. It was generous to give the idea that attention. I would not turn a friendly conversation into an endorsement, but it meant something to have it heard.

There was a connection between the two conversations, even if our projects operate on very different scales. If Subko wants people to notice who and what sits behind a cup, I want BrewLib to help curiosity become understanding, and understanding become something useful when brewing. That is the direction I was trying to explain, probably with more enthusiasm than economy.

Kiran, cacao and a room full of details

Neha introduced me to Kiran, who would be supervising this store. Lively and welcoming, he was happy to talk about the growing specialty coffee scene while showing me the coffees, equipment, craft chocolate and Subko’s newer munchies range.

There was plenty to distract me: snack jars, chocolate cross sections behind glass, coffee boxes worth picking up just to read. The cacao extends a story that began before this Mini. In a 2023 interview about Mumbai’s Cacao Mill, Rahul Reddy described working with farms on fermentation and drying, bringing attention to the agricultural material behind the chocolate. [5]

The packaging does some of that work, too. The Hard Copy traces designer Aniruddh Mehta’s references to tickets and labels, and the decision to use boxes instead of conventional coffee bags. [4] Each project has a character of its own, while still looking unmistakably Subko. That design language is one of the brand’s strengths: it catches your eye, then gives your curiosity somewhere to go. Pick up a box for the illustration; stay for the estate and the story.

A familiar face behind the counter

Then I encountered Satish.

I had known him for more than a year, from Subko at District 150 in Sattva Knowledge City, the same office complex as my day job. I see him roughly once a week. Finding him here surprised us both: a familiar part of my working week had appeared in this new setting.

A few weeks earlier, Satish had also agreed to beta-test BrewLib. We would discuss his feedback whenever I visited and the café was quiet. He was the only tester outside the small WhatsApp community where I had shared the project; broader marketing was waiting for me to clear some of my backlog.

Here was someone already helping with the thing I had just been explaining to Neha. I could not have arranged that connection more neatly. A barista’s working day is full of the practical questions I want BrewLib to help answer. Having Satish willing to bring that experience to it meant a great deal, even more so when we unexpectedly crossed paths here.

A familiar pour, and a new discovery

Kiran had Satish prepare two coffees: a hot pour-over of Project Yung Gun from Kerehaklu Estate, and an iced Project Giri from Kalledevarapura Estate. Both estates are in Karnataka.

Yung Gun had become a regular choice on my recent Subko visits. The current CW3 listing describes a light filter roast of Selection 9, aerobically washed, with tasting references to orange creamsicle, green grape and caramel. [6] Those are Subko’s descriptors. My attachment was simpler: I kept coming back to it.

Giri was the discovery. A medium roast of Selection 795, it uses a thermal shock process; Subko’s references are green apple, Chardonnay wine and cacao nibs. [7] As an iced pour-over, it made quite an impression on the friend who had come along. More accurately, it blew his socks off.

Watching Satish prepare the coffee was its own pleasure. The metal dripper sat on a copper-pipe stand above a server full of ice. Water from the kettle became falling drops, then a pool of coffee. My camera kept finding reasons to stay at the counter.

Subko’s published iced Giri recipe offers a starting point for anyone taking that curiosity home: 22 grams of coffee, 200 millilitres of water at 88 degrees Celsius, and 130 grams of ice. [7] That is the roaster’s recipe, rather than a record of Satish’s preparation. The cards beside our cups supplied the other useful keepsake: the estate, variety and lot, ready to look up when memory inevitably became less precise than enthusiasm.

The sort of Saturday worth keeping

I left feeling that Subko’s confidence in its niche is an advantage. Its design, communication and attention to the work behind its products give it a recognisable character. I hope expansion deepens that character. There is something reassuring about a company knowing what it wants to be when so much around it seems eager to chase the next thing.

What made that conviction persuasive that afternoon was the company I kept: Neha making time for an enthusiastic stranger’s project, Kiran showing me around, Satish appearing with a familiar face and a connection I had not expected. The coffee and the conversations had become inseparable.

I still want to see a Subko flagship in Hyderabad. Until then, this little counter gives me another reason to visit Jubilee Hills. I arrived through a friend’s invitation, took far too many photographs, talked about coffee and my slightly unruly experiment, and left thinking I could not have planned a better Saturday weeks in advance.

Finding the Subko Mini in Hyderabad

The Subko Mini is inside VegNonVeg on Road No. 22, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad [9]. It is separate from Subko’s existing Hyderabad café at District 150 [2].

More from the visit

See all Subko coffees in Library