Sri Narasu’s Coffee marks 100 years with ‘A Century in a Cup’

MUMBAI: Some things change with the times, while others simply brew through them. Sri Narasu’s Coffee Company is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a new TVC that takes viewers on a century-long journey through India, with a cup of coffee serving as the constant companion.

Titled ‘A Century in a Cup’, the film begins in 2026, with a young woman sipping Narasu’s Coffee at work before being transported through different chapters of India’s history. Her coffee cup travels with her as she moves through a 1926 cabinet room featuring Lord Irwin, the 1946 freedom movement, a traditional family gathering in 1966, the excitement of the 1983 Cricket World Cup and an early-2000s internet café.

The time-hopping narrative uses coffee to connect moments that are otherwise separated by decades. While India’s way of living, working, celebrating and communicating has changed dramatically, the film builds its central idea around the familiarity of the coffee ritual across generations.

Narasu’s itself becomes part of the journey in one of the period sequences, where the protagonist encounters a Narasu’s Coffee pack in a traditional coffee shop setting.

The centenary film was conceptualised by Hari RK and produced by HI TIME. The production team included Amrish Lakshman as producer, Sunil KS as director of photography, Aravind as art director, Meenakshi Narayanaswamy as stylist and Aditya Ravindran as music director.

Period sets, production design, visual effects and VFX were used to recreate the different eras. Vyshak Shiva of Nube Studio handled the colour grading, bringing a consistent visual treatment across the multiple periods depicted in the film.

For Narasu’s, the campaign is also designed to connect its century-old legacy with its next phase. The brand, known for South Indian filter coffee, uses the film to highlight its evolution through new products, expansion into new markets and its attempt to connect with a newer generation of coffee drinkers.

S. Srudheep, Managing Director, Sri Narasu’s Coffee, said the centenary was an opportunity to look both at the company’s journey and the generations of coffee drinkers who have been part of it.

The TVC rolled out across Tamil TV channels and Narasu’s social media platforms in Tamil and Kannada from 15 August. The campaign is scheduled to run for six months, with a Telugu version also planned.

At its heart, the campaign turns a 100-year milestone into a simple observation: India may have moved from cabinet rooms to internet cafés and beyond, but some daily rituals have managed to stay remarkably constant preferably with a fresh cup in hand.