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January 16, 2017

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For those reading tea leaves, local love for coffee looks destined for further growth

THE arrival of the New Year has set off the inevitable frenzy of forecasts on social media. It seems that everyone in business, politics and technology is endowed with the magical power of reading tea leaves — that ancient form of fortune telling, in which the patterns created by spent tea leaves at the bottom of a cup provide a glimpse into the future.

One bright spot amidst the cooling global demand for commodities is coffee. While coffee consumption worldwide is growing at a mere 2 percent annually, in China it has been galloping ahead by 30 percent. According to SPR Coffee, the nation is home potentially to 200 million coffee consumers.

Cast an eye around Shanghai’s new office blocks, residential compounds and shopping neighborhoods, and you find cafes blossoming everywhere. Riding and fuelling the boom are not only well-established chains such as Starbucks and Costa, whose penchant for serving green tea lattes, red bean scones and mooncakes is now well documented. With the coffee cup now the latest fashion accessory, South Korean brands Zoo Coffee, Maan and Café Bene, along with scores of independent coffee shops, are finding fans amongst the city’s young, hip white-collar crowd. For them, coffee isn’t just a drink. It is an affordable luxury, which is why they are happy to dip into their Chanel purses and pay 30 yuan (US$4.33) for a latte.

As the humble bean makes its transition from commodity to brand, both growers and brand owners are scrambling to find ways of differentiating their offerings. The story of Xu Zhengxiong, a coffee farmer-turned-entrepreneur from Yunnan Province, where more than 90 percent of China’s coffee is grown, suggests that the craze for coffee has deep roots. It was way back in 1892 that a French missionary introduced the crop to the region, but large-scale cultivation is a recent phenomenon. Even though the bulk of the coffee consumed in China is Robusta, and is imported from neighboring Vietnam, most of the coffee in Yunnan is Arabica, grown in the Pu’er region, traditionally famous for its tea. Farmers have discovered they can grow tea and coffee together, and that coffee fetches them much greater returns. Local production has since soared to 120,000 tons. Xu’s coffee kingdom comprises coffee experience centers, a processing plant and, of course, cafes.

In their quest to increase the frequency of coffee consumption from the meager average of four cups a year, café chains are focusing on heightening their experience. Young couples are attracted by their intimate settings and relaxed ambience. Maan Coffee derives its name from the Mandarin word “romantic,” and most of its outlets are located near residential neighborhoods, schools and parks.

Zoo Coffee offers a wilder experience, with its hundred-odd cafes populated with life-sized pandas, giraffes and zebras. For its marketing events, Caffe Bene has roped in South Korean star Kim Soo-Hyun, who is a household name in China for his role in the popular TV show “My Love from the Star.”

Delightfully, much of China’s coffee boom is being fuelled by smaller indie cafes, such as Beijing’s Sculpting in Time, started by a Taiwanese student from the Beijing Film Academy. The cafe is decorated with old movie posters, and crammed with books. They offer soups, sandwiches, pastas and a variety of drinks, with the menu changing every season. It screens Chinese and Western films on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Suzhou provides the setting for coffee enthusiast Max Wang’s 36th Story, which welcomes you with R&B and smooth jazz. There are teddy bears lounging on chairs around the shop, and the décor is a fusion of European elegance and Chinese kitsch. Max injects a healthy dose of creativity into his menu, as his drinks are flavored with mango, rose, peach and blue curacao, layered with cream and sugar.

I will now wait to find out if my barista is able to create a dragon on the foam of my cappuccino.

 

The author is a columnist based in Shanghai.




 

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