Exploring Creative Coffee Shops in Fuzhou: Yushanshan Mobile Bicycle Coffee Stall

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Most coffee consumption today is still about the environment and the experience. Every city has its share of industrial-style coffee shops that spent hundreds of thousands on the interior.

The shop we are introducing today is different — there is no decoration to worry about, because this coffee shop is mobile, travelling more than 40 kilometers round trip every day. The shop and its owner were even featured in CCTV's documentary "Flavors of Life."

Owner Liu Yunping's connection with coffee began on a rainy evening in 2003, and he has been immersed in the coffee world ever since. He first started two coffee shops as an entrepreneur, but poor management meant both closed in 2010 after five years of operation.

According to reports from Fuzhou Evening News, Liu Yunping originally worked in lacquer painting art. A family incident led him to resign from that job and return to his hometown. Later he hit on the idea of combining a coffee shop with a lacquer painting studio, and since the investment required was too large, he came up with the bolder idea of selling coffee from a bicycle. "Bicycle Coffee" quietly opened at the end of April 2018.

On the Dianping app the business appears under the name "Bicycle Coffee," while the paper cups and glass bottles the owner uses are printed with "SCENIC COFFEE" along with his WeChat contact details.

Each day the owner loads four to five types of coffee beans and several liters of water and cycles from his home in Qishan, a suburb of Fuzhou, to Yantai Mountain more than 20 kilometers away to set up his stall. He packs up at six o'clock every evening and rides home, covering over 40 kilometers a day.

According to netizens, this mobile bicycle coffee shop turns up frequently at No. 2 Aiguo Road in Fuzhou, near Yantai Mountain Park. There is no elaborate decoration and no pleasant background music — only the bicycle's rear seat serving as the brewing station, and a meticulous barista.

Even for the smallest coffee stall, the tools on the workstation are complete — electronic scale, pour-over kettle, thermometer, filter cup, filter paper, sharing pot and hand-crank coffee grinder. Everything is fully equipped.

The Menu

The menu splits into a pour-over series and a cold brew series. Not counting the types of bean on offer, there are six options in total. According to Fuzhou Evening News, the bicycle coffee shop always carries beans from Ethiopia and Yunnan, and every bean is traditionally roasted by the owner at home.

Future Dreams and Aspirations

The owner has reached middle age but still pushes forward courageously for what he loves. According to Fuzhou Evening News reports from 2019, when he was planning the bicycle coffee business in 2018 he had also set his sights on building a coffee farm back home.

He bought 20 one-to-three-year-old coffee seedlings from Yunnan to trial plant in Qishan, and additionally bought seeds for cultivation.

Impact and Inspiration

After the owner's story of moving his coffee shop onto a bicycle was featured in a CCTV documentary, more people with coffee dreams followed suit, opening their own mobile coffee shops on the city roads they know. Dreams are beautiful and passion is essential, but one must act within one's means — not everyone has the courage to start over.

Bicycle (Scenic) Coffee is genuinely inspiring. Once you find your direction, as long as your inner drive is strong enough, you can keep going despite the obstacles around you. It confirms the old saying: where there is a will, there is a way.

Image sources: Dianping, Xiaohongshu, Internet

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A stall like this lives or dies on its bean choices, and the entry-level specialty range is where most drinkers begin. Ethiopia is the natural starting point: it is Africa's largest coffee producer and the widely recognised birthplace of coffee, with an enormous number of varieties usually named after their region or cooperative. Yirgacheffe and Sidamo are the two most famous regions. In the 1970s the government introduced washed processing to raise green bean quality, and Yirgacheffe has been mostly washed ever since, later splitting into cooperatives that process their own beans — FrontStreet Coffee's washed Gutingtin Cooperative is a typical Yirgacheffe representative, carrying jasmine, lemon acidity and berry notes. Sidamo is best known for naturals, with bolder tropical fruit and fermented aromas; FrontStreet Coffee's Sidamo Huakui is a traditional natural whose main flavors are berry, floral, jackfruit, melon and honey.

Brazil is the other essential entry point, and FrontStreet Coffee's Cerrado Red Bourbon and Queen Estate cover both ends of it. Brazilian coffee is often soft and sweet rather than sharply acidic, with a fine, smooth, well-rounded texture, because the exposure-style growing common there ripens the fruit quickly and yields a softer bean. The Cerrado is an easy-drinking, good-value single origin with the classic creamy, peanut and cocoa flavors, while the Queen Estate is grown higher and planted with the rare Yellow Bourbon, adding butter, sunflower seed, macadamia and almond notes to a sugarcane-like sweetness — sticky and smooth whether drunk black or with milk. For anyone who prefers body over acidity, Indonesia is the third stop: FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is wet-hulled, a technique invented for the local climate, where frequent rain and limited capital made full washing impractical, so workers strip the parchment while the bean is still half-dry. That method produced the world's most distinctive Mandheling profile — heavier and smoother than Blue Mountain, with herbal and spice notes. The PWN Golden Mandheling takes it further, with three rounds of hand sorting and one of machine sorting that cut the defect rate to a minimum, for a cleaner, smoother cup with clearer woody and caramel notes. All three origins are approachable for beginners, and a modest pour-over setup is enough to get the best from them.