Narasu's sells six filter coffee blends in India, and the only thing that meaningfully separates them is the coffee-to-chicory ratio: Delite at 53:47, Anandham at 70:30, Udhayam at 80:20, Dhivyam at 85:15, and two packs with no chicory at all, Premium Blend Pure and Revive. This guide prices every one of them per 100 g of actual coffee — the comparison pack sizes are designed to discourage — and then names the one worth buying.
Some context first, because it explains the pricing. Sri Narasu's Coffee Company turned 100 this year. It is a ₹641 crore business run out of Salem, Tamil Nadu, with around 78 company-owned stores, and it draws roughly 80% of its revenue from inside that single state. Narasu's is a Tamil Nadu institution in the middle of being scaled into a national brand, and in August 2026 some of its SKUs are still priced like the former while others are priced like the latter.
Every Narasu's blend and its ratio
The ratios below are the figures Narasu's publishes on its own product pages, checked on 13 August 2026. Ignore the names while you read them: "Premium", "Special", "Hotel Blend" and "Extra Bold" carry no consistent meaning, here or anywhere else on the shelf.
| Blend | Coffee : Chicory | Sold as | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Blend Pure (PB) | 100 : 0 | Powder and roasted seeds | The pure line; no chicory added |
| Revive | 100 : 0 | Powder, 200 g vacuum pack | 100% arabica; the lightest cup in the range |
| Dhivyam Premium | 85 : 15 | Powder, coarse ground | Coffee-forward, with just enough chicory for body |
| Udhayam | 80 : 20 | Powder, 50 g to 500 g | The classic everyday kaapi ratio |
| Anandham Hotel Blend | 70 : 30 | Powder, 100 g to 500 g | Milkier and sweeter; the tiffin-centre profile |
| Delite | 53 : 47 | Powder, 50 g to 500 g | At the legal chicory ceiling |
| Royal Extra Bold (REB) | Not published | Powder and seeds | Described by Narasu's as a pure coffee |
| N.Special | Not published | Powder and seeds | Listed as a "pure strong coffee" |
Two caveats matter more than the table itself. Royal Extra Bold and N.Special appear on Narasu's filter coffee category page but not in its main product index, and neither carries a published ratio, so neither can be compared on the same basis as the rest — treat them as store and export lines. And older write-ups of this brand, including an earlier version of this page, list a "Peaberry" or "Peabery" variant. Narasu's sells nothing under that name today. The pure powder is Premium Blend, abbreviated PB on export packs and marketplace listings, which is where the peaberry story almost certainly started.
Delite's 53:47 is not an arbitrary number either. Indian food standards require a packaged coffee-chicory mixture to contain at least 51% coffee, so 53:47 is the commercial edge of the legal limit, and every major brand's strongest blend lands there. Since 1 July 2026 both percentages have had to appear in a box on the front of the pack, in capitals, under FSSAI's amended labelling rules — which makes this the first year the whole category can be compared honestly. Our comparison of South Indian coffee powder brands works through that rule and puts Narasu's on one table with Cothas, Levista, Continental Malgudi and Bru.
What Narasu's actually costs per gram of coffee
Chicory costs a fraction of what coffee costs per kilo, so the price on a pouch tells you very little on its own. The useful figure is what you are paying for the coffee inside it. The final column below is pack price divided by the grams of coffee in the pack, with chicory treated as filler.
| Blend | Coffee : Chicory | Pack | Price, 13 Aug 2026 | ₹ per 100 g of pack | ₹ per 100 g of coffee | Quoted at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revive (arabica, pure) | 100 : 0 | 200 g | ₹178 (MRP ₹220) | ₹89 | ₹89 | narasuscoffee.in |
| Udhayam | 80 : 20 | 500 g | ₹357 | ₹71 | ₹89 | BigBasket |
| Anandham Hotel Blend | 70 : 30 | 500 g | ₹350 | ₹70 | ₹100 | Amazon.in |
| Dhivyam Premium | 85 : 15 | 500 g | ₹490 | ₹98 | ₹115 | BigBasket |
| Delite | 53 : 47 | 500 g | ₹345 | ₹69 | ₹130 | Amazon.in |
| Premium Blend Pure (PB) | 100 : 0 | 500 g | ₹650 | ₹130 | ₹130 | Amazon.in |
The ranking inverts the shelf. Delite is the cheapest Narasu's pouch you can buy and the joint most expensive coffee in the range. At ₹345 for 500 g it looks like the budget option, but 47% of that pouch is chicory, so the coffee costs ₹130 per 100 g — precisely what the 100% pure Premium Blend costs. There is no version of that trade that makes sense: if you are prepared to spend ₹130 per 100 g of coffee, buy coffee.
Udhayam is the opposite case. It sits at the ratio most households want anyway, and at ₹357 for 500 g it delivers coffee at ₹89 per 100 g, comfortably the cheapest chicory blend Narasu's makes on that basis. Revive matches it at ₹89, which is the genuine surprise: a vacuum-packed 100% arabica for the same cost per gram of coffee as an 80:20 blend. That figure depends on a discount, though. At Revive's ₹220 MRP it becomes ₹110, so it is a buy when the brand store has it marked down and unremarkable when it does not.
One trap the table cannot show: marketplace listings for Narasu's are unreliable on ratio. The same Dhivyam Premium 500 g pouch appears on Flipkart as 85:15 under one seller and 90:10 under another, and Delite and Dhivyam listings have been cross-labelled with each other's names on BigBasket. Buy on the ratio printed on the pouch, and check it against Narasu's own product page rather than the listing title.
The Salem story, separated from the legend
Narasu's markets itself on 1926 and a century of roasting, and the year holds up across every independent source. The founder's name does not always. The one that circulates online is P. Narasimhalu Naidu, which looks like a conflation with Salem Pagadala Narasimhalu Naidu (1854–1922), a Coimbatore mill owner, publisher and early Congress secretary with no connection to the coffee company. Outlook Business, in its July 2026 centenary feature, names the founder as V. Lakshmi Narasimhan, known as Narasu, who began by supplying freshly roasted coffee to British engineers building a bridge near his village and then opened a small roasting factory in Salem.
Two later dates are more load-bearing than the founding one. The head office was inaugurated in 1939 by V. V. Giri, then labour minister and later President of India. And in 1966, after the founder's death, the business fell into financial crisis and was sold at a court auction to a partnership firm led by R. P. Sarathy — the line that still runs it, under chairman P. Sivanantham and managing director S. Srudheep. "Family-run since 1926" is therefore not quite the right claim for Narasu's. "Continuously roasting in Salem since 1926, under two families" is, and it is the more interesting version.
The commercial present matters to a buyer too. Narasu's told DT Next in May 2026 that it was expanding beyond Tamil Nadu into Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, moving to 150 distributors and targeting ₹1,000 crore in five years. Until that lands, availability outside Tamil Nadu is patchier than Cothas or Bru, and the 78 company-owned stores where coffee is ground fresh to order are almost all in one state. If you live near one, that counter beats any packet in this guide, for the reasons set out in our note on fresh-ground versus pre-ground coffee.
Narasu's against Cothas, Levista and Bru Green Label
Ratio for ratio, using the same per-100 g-of-coffee method and the August 2026 prices from our South Indian brand comparison:
| Ratio | Narasu's blend | ₹ / 100 g coffee | Nearest rival | ₹ / 100 g coffee | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85 : 15 | Dhivyam Premium | ₹115 | Cothas Speciality Blend | ₹73 | Cothas, by 37% |
| 80 : 20 | Udhayam | ₹89 | Levista Filter 80:20 | ₹123 | Narasu's, by 28% |
| 80 : 20 | Udhayam | ₹89 | Continental Malgudi 80/20 | ₹122 | Narasu's, by 27% |
| 53 : 47 | Delite | ₹130 | Bru Green Label | ₹74 | Bru, by 43% |
Narasu's wins exactly one of these, and wins it decisively. Udhayam undercuts both mainstream 80:20 rivals by more than a quarter on the coffee you actually receive, and that is the strongest argument the brand has. At 85:15 it is beaten badly by Cothas; at 53:47 it is beaten badly by Bru — and Bru Green Label reaches kirana shops that stock no specialist roaster at all, so there is no availability argument to fall back on. If instant is what you were really after, note that Narasu's Insta Strong (70:30) and Master Extra Strong (57:43) are separate instant products rather than filter powders; the Bru range guide and our instant coffee powder roundup cover that shelf.
The verdict
Buy Udhayam, 80:20, in the 500 g pouch, from a marketplace rather than the brand store. It is the only Narasu's blend cheaper per gram of coffee than its direct competition, it sits at the ratio most South Indian households want, and it is the easiest Narasu's pack to find outside Tamil Nadu. At roughly ₹357 it is a straightforward recommendation.
Buy Revive if you want pure coffee and the brand store has it under ₹200 for 200 g. At the discounted price it costs no more per gram of coffee than Udhayam, and 100% arabica for that money is a good deal. At MRP it is not, and Premium Blend Pure at ₹650 for 500 g is not either.
Do not buy Delite. A 53:47 pouch is only worth owning if it is priced like one. Bru Green Label is the same ratio for 43% less on a coffee-adjusted basis and sits on more shelves. Delite exists to hit a low sticker price, and it does that by selling chicory at coffee money.
Skip Dhivyam unless you specifically want Narasu's at 85:15. Cothas Speciality is the same ratio for roughly a third less. Dhivyam's coarse grind is well judged for a metal filter and it is a good pouch if you have settled on the brand; it is simply not the cheap route to an 85:15.
Two brewing notes specific to this range, since ratio changes how the filter behaves. Delite's 47% chicory swells and slows the drip, so dose it lighter and barely press it or the decoction stalls. Revive and Premium Blend Pure run the other way: no chicory means a faster, thinner drip, so dose heavier than you would a blend and expect a lighter-bodied decoction rather than a syrupy one. If you have not bought the filter yet, our brass versus steel filter comparison is worth reading before you spend on powder.