Dormitory Cafes Becoming a "Thriving Industry"?? And Students Paying Tuition to Become Apprentices?!

The Rise of Dorm Room Coffee Shops

"College life is wonderful and free," Generation Z students enter university with visions for the future, moving into dormitories and starting dorm room coffee shops. Riding on the coffee obsession among Gen Z students, some dorm room coffee shop operators are earning their first pot of gold before entering society. However, with instant coffee costing over ten yuan per cup, wouldn't milk tea from Mixue Bingcheng and freshly ground coffee from Luckin Coffee be more appealing?

However, many universities have implemented closed-campus management for the health and safety of students and faculty, making it difficult to freely leave campus to visit coffee shops. With the high demand for coffee among students, a coffee industry chain has been incubated within school dormitories.

The Business Opportunity and Social Media Influence

On the Xiaohongshu platform, there are increasingly more shares related to "dorm room coffee." Some netizens have reported earning nearly 10,000 yuan per month by establishing "dorm room coffee shops" in their dormitories. Such tempting amounts have even surprised those who operate coffee shops, exclaiming "So coffee can be this profitable," making some netizens see business opportunities.

One blogger created entrepreneurship Q&A posts about dorm room coffee shops on the Xiaohongshu platform, acting as a consultant for dorm room coffee shop owners and charging fees to students. Despite the fees, many netizens still leave comments asking about student fees, wanting to obtain this business wisdom.

The blogger who started the dorm room coffee shop training program later shared the follow-up situations of their students on Xiaohongshu. Some enlarged text such as "Nearly 1,000 in revenue in 3 days," "Business was so good I directly opened a studio," "Materials ran out in two days of opening," "200+ in revenue on the first day of opening" - the entire share constantly encourages netizens to boldly start their businesses.

Controversies and Concerns

While the idea of entrepreneurship is appealing, the practice of operating dorm room coffee shops has sparked controversy. Some netizens suspect this is marketing accounts "harvesting leeks" (exploiting naive entrepreneurs).

Other netizens pointed out that the pricing is unreasonably high. On the Xiaohongshu platform, instant coffee from various brands can be seen in many shared posts, from Hougu Coffee to Sumida River, to even Coffee Box.

Additionally, some netizens pointed out that dorm room coffee shops lack food safety guarantees, and their staff don't have health certificates.

Coffee Workshop has previously reported on dorm room coffee shops and mentioned that this behavior of profiting from self-made beverages/engaging in monetary transactions constitutes unlicensed business operation, which is illegal!

For any food business establishment, having relevant permits and qualifications is the most basic standard. If food safety issues occur, since most unlicensed operators are students whose financial resources come from their families, problems involving compensation claims may be difficult to resolve.

Furthermore, catering staff have extremely strict requirements for hand hygiene. Long fingernails, nail polish, etc., even in properly licensed coffee shops, would result in fines if discovered during inspections.

Reflections on the Coffee Culture

The passion and creativity of college students for coffee have brought new blood and vitality to the coffee industry, which is a positive development. However, in pursuit of profit, standards have been continuously lowered - selling instant coffee at freshly ground coffee prices, not teaching coffee knowledge, but instead selling recipes and charging tuition fees.

Many coffee enthusiasts probably fell into the deep abyss of coffee starting with instant coffee. Many coffee professionals have progressed from instant coffee to freshly ground coffee, from learning about Arabica and the differences between instant and freeze-dried, to educating others about coffee knowledge.

Are these people really making coffee? Can these dorm room coffee shops truly be called coffee shops?

Image source: Douban, Xiaohongshu, Internet

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