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Piyush Jessani, owner of Pi’s Coffee
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Popping up around the region, Pi’s Coffee makes regular appearances at the West End and Scott’s Addition farmers markets.
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The Pi’s Coffee truck
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A thundai latte from Pi’s Coffee featuring a housemade syrup of almond, fennel, cardamom and black peppercorn
Piyush “Pi” Jessani has a knack for building flavors. An engineer by training, a bartender by trade and a barista by choice, this month Jessani marks one year of operating his namesake mobile business, Pi’s Coffee. Driving a converted Japanese kei-truck that serves as his shop, Jessani, 24, is crafting a new coffee experience, infusing Indian influences into each beverage he makes.
“I have things everyone would expect, but I started making syrups based off things my mom fed me when I was younger, so I just kind of developed off that,” Jessani says.
Born in Bangalore (known today as Bengaluru), India, Jessani has created a business that is a bracing, innovative and deeply personal tale of his upbringing. Having lived in Malaysia, France, China and Chile before coming to the United States 15 years ago, he likes to say he was “raised all over the world.”
Making regular appearances at the West End and Scott’s Addition farmers markets, Jessani says many of his drinks derive from his family, gentle nods to his lineage and his life so far. While patrons can find a traditional latte, cappuccino, drip or cold brew, they can also choose a rich “desi-style” mocha, balanced by espresso for a toasty, barley-tinged finish, or a thundai latte featuring syrup made from his grandmother’s recipe, a heady and aromatic mingling of cardamom, black peppercorn, almond and fennel. A number of the offerings at Pi’s Coffee can be served without caffeine as flavored milk drinks.
Jessani’s creativity extends to a rotating assortment of coffee-free sips: Rose lemonade speaks to the floral ingredient found in the sweets of his youth. Blue milk tea (which can be spiked with espresso) is a grassy, coconutty offering whose hue changes depending on the iris and butterfly pea flower that infuse it. He also serves lychee-spiked, nonalcoholic “No-Jitos”; vegan mango lassis; and seasonal spritzers. Having worked at Short Pump Indian restaurant Lehja since 2018, Jessani considers these beverages a chance for him to lean into his cocktail-making skills.
“I wanted to have drinks people could have at night without coffee, and it slowly went from there, but I still applied the same principle of ‘nothing basic,’” Jessani says. “Every drink on my menu should have an Indian ingredient to it, so that way I can still play around with flavors, ... and they were inspired by my mom.”
Owner of local catering company and pop-up Khushbu, his mother, Kajal, not only helped teach him everything he knows, Jessani says, she was also part of the reason he started his coffee journey.
“My mom had gotten a care package from India with raw coffee beans, and from that I just learned the whole process of roasting coffee and understanding all the different drinks and everything and delving into it,” he says.
Scouring Google, YouTube and books for knowledge, the Virginia Commonwealth University engineering student tapped into his solution-oriented ethos and took the dive into coffee. “Because I am still an engineer, I understood the basic method of how to approach a problem,” he says.
Jessani originally began roasting beans on the stovetop. When he discovered that even a small roaster had a hefty price tag, he purchased a popcorn maker instead, converting it into an at-home machine that he still uses today. “The basic concept is the same between popcorn kernels and coffee beans; I figured I could do something and just kind of learned,” he says.
In March (on Pi Day, coincidentally), Jessani purchased a Japanese mini truck to haul his mobile cafe, drawn to the vehicle’s toy-like quirkiness, he says. “We had gone to a few car meets and realized, in a sea of all these super cars and tricked-out vehicles, everybody still went to these tiny cars.”
Jessani confirms that he’s earned plenty of nods of approval since hitting the road. Instead of vending from within the truck, he houses his equipment inside its bed and sets up his drink station in front, resulting in a more personalized and spacious operation.
A member of the robotics team during his time at Deep Run High School, he credits the club for kick-starting his love for engineering, which played a pivotal role in the launch of Pi’s Coffee. He now serves as a mentor at Deep Run and an avid promoter of STEM education. As for his connection with food and flavors, that runs in the family.
“lt started with my mom; her love of food just carried over to me," he says.
While Jessani says his biggest goals are to diversify the coffee scene, be true to himself and explore his own potential within the space, serving beans from India has been a point of pride.
“I wanted to get better, and if I could showcase Indian beans, because no one had Indian beans, I might as well try,” he says. “My favorite thing about the Indian coffee beans is how versatile they are; they give a balanced profile. I talked to my aunt in India and set up a deal and imported all the Indian beans over, and now I’m seeing how far I can take it.”
Upcoming events for Pi’s Coffee include the Rocketts Landing Market Sept. 14, a pop-up with Sunday Bagel at Odd Bird Sept. 15 and the Iron Blossom Festival Sept. 21-22. For the most up-to-date schedule, visit Pi’s Coffee on Instagram.
