Postal Service Cafe Promotion Fiasco? Which China Post Coffee is the Authentic One? The First "Post Office Cafe" Sparks Controversy!

China Post's "Post Office Coffee" Controversy: The Battle of China's First Location

Several days ago, China Post's official WeChat and Weibo accounts announced the opening of a Post Office Coffee at Xiamen's International Trade Building, emphasizing it as the first Post Office Coffee. The announcement was pushed across major media outlets. But soon after, some users claimed that similar Post Office Coffee locations had opened before this one — and the businesses involved disagreed.

According to public media reports, in February 2021, China Post's Beijing headquarters began negotiating with Zhongyu Coffee representatives about the Post Office Coffee project. On September 1 of that year, Shanghai Zhongyu Coffee Management Consulting Co., Ltd. was established, and China Post's Beijing headquarters then authorized the company (hereinafter Zhongyu Coffee) to open "Post Office Coffee IP stores."

At the opening, Zhongyu Coffee described its "Post Office Coffee" as China Post's first independently operated coffee shop, and the phrase "first Post Office Coffee" in the opening press release received endorsement from China Post's official accounts. The same announcement accompanied the Xiamen post office location's launch, stressing Xiamen as "the first Post Office Coffee nationwide."

Challenging the "First" Claim

After the "first in the country" promotion appeared, however, netizens pointed out that similar "Post Office Coffee" locations had already opened in Xiamen's Shapowei area, near Shanghai's popular Wukang Building, and in the Huabai district of Zhongshan, Guangdong.

Some netizens began asking whether "Post Office Coffee" was open for franchising, and questioned the "first nationwide" wording — which locations were truly Post Office Coffee? When responding to such questions on its official WeChat account, "China Post" gave a definitive answer: "Xiamen is the first."

Franchising Questions and Conflicting Claims

That put the earlier locations under scrutiny. On the evening of the 18th, Xiamen Post's official WeChat account issued a statement saying it was still in a trial operation phase and that no "franchise center" existed.

At the same time, another WeChat account, "Zhongshan Philately" — verified as the China Post Zhongshan Branch — issued its own statement declaring: "Post Coffee Post Office Coffee is the only authorized coffee-themed post office currently operated by China Post Group Co., Ltd. Zhongshan Branch." That confirmed locally authorized "Post Office Coffee" locations existed too, and they had opened as early as December of the previous year.

The China Post Zhongshan Branch even produced a dedicated video addressing questions such as "Is this really China Post?" and "Can it be franchised?" — answering both in the affirmative and adding: "Specific franchising plans are still being urgently formulated in meetings." (Because "franchise" is a prohibited term under video platform policies, the video substituted the homophone "Jiameng.")

When netizens asked, "Isn't Xiamen the first? When did the Zhongshan location open?" Zhongshan's "Post Coffee Post Office Coffee" replied: "We opened in December last year. Think about it carefully."

Clarifying the Confusion

For a while, which location represented China Post's first Post Office Coffee — and whether franchising was even possible — became an increasingly tangled dispute. Ms. He of the China Post Zhongshan Branch explained that when the official account said "Xiamen Post Office Coffee is the first," it meant "the first coffee shop opened inside a post office business hall." She suggested outsiders had misunderstood the expression and that the wording in related announcements wasn't precise enough.

So China Post's official channels claimed "Xiamen is the first Post Office Coffee nationwide," while the earlier locations each claimed official recognition of their own. For whatever reason, "China Post" appears not to have been aware of the tangle caused by multiple "Post Office Coffee" locations already in business.

Conclusion

Image source: Weibo video comment section screenshots

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