From cafés to quick commerce: Nescafé serves cold coffee to Gen Z

For millennials, the cold coffee craze began somewhere between Café Coffee Day meetups and “Frappuccino runs”, the kind of drink that looked just as appealing on Instagram as it tasted. Fast-forward a decade, and coffee still hasn’t lost its cool; only its cup has changed.

While Gen Z may occasionally switch from lattes to matcha or kombucha, coffee remains a constant in their caffeine carousel. It’s fuel, comfort and content all in one. Thanks to quick commerce, cold coffee can now arrive before the next Reels scroll – with no need for baristas or queues, just a caffeine fix on demand.

The result? Cold coffee has moved from café counters to instant gratification territory.  And at the centre of this evolution sits Nescafé, which is betting on India’s growing cold coffee culture even though it currently makes up just 0.2% of the country’s cold beverage market, according to Nielsen market estimates.

A market that’s just getting started

Despite all the buzz, the ready-to-drink (RTD) cold coffee segment in India remains quite small. Cold coffee currently accounts for just 0.2% of the country’s Rs 1 trillion cold beverage market, according to Nielsen market estimate. That’s the opportunity Nestlé India sees: a massive untapped segment waiting to be caffeinated.

“Over the last two years, the CAGR of the RTD cold coffee category has been around 23%,” says Manav Sahni, head of dairy business, Nestlé India.

“The category is valued at approximately Rs 2 billion, compared to Rs 504 billion for carbonated soft drinks. It’s small, but that’s exactly where the opportunity lies.”

And India’s climate, youth demographic, and digital-first lifestyle couldn’t be more suited for the cold brew wave. Coffee isn’t fighting tea anymore; it’s creating its own lane.

“We’re not pitting cold coffee against aerated drinks,” Sahni clarifies. “It’s about the throat, another option when you’re thirsty or seeking an indulgent drink.”

Café-style taste, pocket-friendly price

When Nescafé relaunched its Café-Style Cold Coffee, the mission was simple: bring café indulgence to the masses. With 170 ml cans priced at Rs 50 and tall cans at Rs 70, the brand’s pitch is affordability with aspirational taste. Competing products often range between Rs 120 and Rs 150, making Nescafé’s positioning a strong value play for young consumers.

For a generation that equates “treating yourself” with ordering comfort drinks on demand, Nescafé has positioned itself as that perfect midday pick-me-up: part nostalgia, part necessity.

Gen Z’s beverage of choice (and timing)

India’s emerging caffeine audience is unmistakable: Gen Z and millennials are the predominant consumers of RTD cold coffee. “Tea is their parents’ drink,” Sahni says with a laugh. “Coffee has become their preferred beverage, and most start with cold coffee.”

The insight is visible in how and where they buy. Platforms such as Zepto, Blinkit, and Swiggy Instamart have turned cold coffee into an impulse category “like a KitKat”, as Sahni describes it. Craving it? Tap. Delivered. Done.

Quick commerce is now one of Nescafé’s fastest-growing channels. But the brand’s growth story isn’t just urban. Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets — from Nagpur to Imphal, Aizawl, and Tripura — are catching up fast. Coffee, it turns out, is no longer a metro or monsoon habit. In North India’s winters, sales have stayed consistent or grown.

The 88% digital play

If the product caters to the always-on generation, the media mix reflects this. Nescafé allocates an impressive 88% of its marketing budget to digital channels, prioritising short-form and contextually relevant storytelling.

“For Gen Z and millennials who spend 6–7 hours a day on their phones, it’s crucial to engage them on that six-inch screen,” Sahni says.

The brand’s campaign mix spans TV, YouTube, OTT and Meta, with bite-sized edits of 6, 10 and 20 seconds tailored for every platform. The storytelling shifts from everyday realism on YouTube (“waiting for a bus”, “college breaks”) to taste appeal on Meta through close-up, sensory visuals.

Nescafé also became one of the first beverage brands to integrate with gaming streams, where viewers could scan QR codes mid-stream to instantly order coffee on quick-commerce apps.

“It wasn’t intrusive advertising,” Sahni notes. “It was contextual, and it worked.”

The brand has also leaned on geo-targeted activations around college campuses and malls, using PIN code–based ads to hit Gen Z hotspots. OTT platforms and connected TVs add another retargeting layer—bridging YouTube audiences back to larger-screen viewing.

A pan-India growth story

What’s surprising, even to Nescafé, is how widespread the demand has become. Cold coffee isn’t just a Southern or urban story. It’s become a cultural beverage familiar enough to comfort, aspirational enough to flaunt.

India’s milk drink DNA gives cold coffee a home advantage over black coffee or imported energy drinks.

Consumers crave indulgence, not just refreshment, and the blend of milk, caffeine, and sweetness makes it both energising and dessert-like. And that explains why cold coffee ranks second only to energy drinks in growth rate among non-alcoholic beverages.

The health twist – coming soon

Still, there’s one emerging tension in the mix: India's growing health-conscious mindset. As more young consumers count calories and track macros, indulgent drinks are being reimagined through a “better-for-you” lens.

Globally, Nescafé has already launched protein-based cold coffees in Latin America and low-calorie variants in Malaysia and Thailand. In India, however, the focus remains on strengthening the indulgent core before diversifying into functional formats.

“We want to first make indulgence universal before making it functional,” Sahni says. “But yes, healthier variants are definitely part of the long-term play.”

From 'Thanda' to 'Café-Style'

If “Thanda” once belonged to cola, Nescafé is trying to own “Café-Style”, a phrase that signals both quality and comfort. “That’s our emotion and our identity,” says Sahni.

The brand isn’t trying to fight cola’s nostalgia; it’s building its own one chilled can, one impulse order, and one Gen Z moment at a time.