Coffee People: Riddhima Sanan

Coffee people.
The Better Coffee Standard defines it precisely: everyone whose life and work are bound to coffee, at every stage of the coffee circle — including those working under coercion, economic dependency, or without pay. Their families. Those who keep them standing.

The industry never stops talking about coffee. It rarely stops to talk about the people behind it. Red Ink Coffee exists, in part, to change that.

Coffee People is a series of portraits. Four questions — their voices.

Who are you and what do you do in coffee?

I'm a founder in the early stages of building a coffee brand. My work right now sits somewhere between product development, brand building, and a lot of learning, which is honestly the most interesting place to be. Coffee drew me in because of how much is still left to explore in it — not just in terms of quality, but in terms of how people actually experience it every day. That's the space I'm working in.

Tell us about a moment in your work with coffee that you're genuinely proud of.

The moment I'm most proud of is also the simplest to describe and the hardest to explain. I left a full-time role in product development at a food brand, left the country I was living in, and decided to start something from scratch in an industry I believed in deeply. No safety net, no guarantee, just a conviction that there was something worth building here. That decision, made quietly, without fanfare, is the thing I come back to on the harder days. It reminds me that I've already done the scariest part.

What's one problem you see in your part of the coffee world — and why does it matter to you personally?

The problem I keep coming back to is this: coffee is one of the most sensory, emotionally rich products in the world, and most people never experience it that way. The industry has done extraordinary work on quality, but the experience around coffee — how it's encountered, how it feels, what it could be beyond a morning habit — has been left largely untouched. That gap bothers me personally because I think people are capable of appreciating so much more. They just haven't been given the chance yet.

What would you change if you could — and what would better look like for you?

What I'd change is the ambition of the industry when it comes to experience. Better, for me, looks like a world where coffee is designed as much for how it feels as for how it tastes. Where the people who don't consider themselves coffee enthusiasts still get to encounter it in ways that surprise them, that feel considered, that make an ordinary moment feel like it was worth pausing for. I don't think that's a distant idea. I think it's closer than the industry realises. Someone just has to build it.

You are coffee people. Tell us.

Four questions. Any language. Any format.

1. Who are you and what do you do in coffee?
2. A moment you're genuinely proud of.
3. One problem in your part of the coffee world — and why it matters to you.
4. What would you change — and what would better look like?

Include a short bio and a photo from your work environment. Send your answers to redinkcoffee@thebettercoffee.org