Can Chinese-Style Coffee Capture the Palate of the Nation?

The Rise of New Chinese-Style Coffee

In recent years, "New Chinese-Style" has become one of the hottest ideas in China's food and beverage industry. As the attitudes of the country's younger generation shift and global food culture evolves quickly, many traditional Chinese foods — and many imported products that were introduced to China — have begun to be reinterpreted.

Traditional Chinese pastries, for example, have kept their production techniques while being reworked by younger makers to suit new consumers. Coffee, once seen as one of the high-end imported goods, has been putting on a Chinese coat in recent years alongside the rise of national-trend culture.

Coffee Culture Needs to Innovate

The world's widely used extraction methods and the many creative coffees already on the market can no longer satisfy the curiosity of a new generation of coffee consumers.

As a result, many coffee professionals have started combining coffee with representative local food cultures, Chinese-style decor, or distinctly Chinese cooking methods — extracting coffee by low-temperature stewing, for instance — creating two-in-one experiences that spark public interest through cultural familiarity.

Chinese Elements in Coffee Culture

The overall "localization" of coffee shops — from menu design to interior decoration — shows Chinese elements everywhere. Coffee is paired with Chinese-style tableware, served in lidded bowls and cock bowls. It is matched with local traditional foods, giving rise to combinations like coffee plus a Chinese breakfast, Chinese medicinal herbs or local snacks, which makes coffee more accessible to the general public.

Today, making something new stand out in the domestic market depends on innovation in local flavors and scenarios. The gradual "Sinicization" of coffee is, in fact, a promising niche. The rise of national trends in recent years has created extremely favorable conditions for new Chinese-style coffee to develop.

This is not, however, a long-term path. Many "New Chinese-Style" products merely guide new consumption habits; they are not practices worth "inheriting."

They lack roots, soul and professionalism. Anything without a foundation will soon be forgotten and lose consumers' interest.

Substance Over Style

Although coffee has developed strongly in the domestic market and demand keeps rising, that interest remains shallow. What people care about is not the taste of the coffee itself.

Support for Yunnan coffee is really support for Yunnan, or support for national trends — not genuine support for coffee itself.

Few people pay attention to the effort coffee researchers and growers make to improve Yunnan coffee. Few focus on the extensive coffee and roasting knowledge that roasters and brewers must learn in order to bring out better flavors from Yunnan beans.

The reason is that many new Chinese-style coffees are too flashy, covering up the things that genuinely deserve our attention. If a food cannot win people over and leave a deep impression through its own taste, then no amount of elaborate cooking or gorgeous packaging will keep it in people's memory for long.

The same holds for "Chinese-style" coffee. Whether it is Chinese local coffee beans or the many creative coffees on the market, people remember only the appearance and never come to appreciate the coffee itself.

Looking Ahead

Of course, this kind of Sinicization is not entirely a bad thing — after all, it has made more people start paying attention to coffee. The task now is to seize the opportunity and let genuine Chinese-style coffee develop better and more professionally, and earn more inheritance and promotion from the public.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If there is one place where coffee and "Chinese-style" genuinely meet, it is Yunnan. FrontStreet Yunnan Smallholder comes from Baoshan and is washed processed, delivering the traditional nut and chocolate flavors with a soft, balanced body — a clean, approachable cup for anyone who wants to taste domestic specialty coffee without gimmicks. For a more structured version, FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan Typica uses the old Arabica Typica variety grown at 1,300 meters; roasted medium, it is cleaner in the cup, with hazelnut, dried apricot, black tea, caramel and ripe plum aromas.

For drinkers who are just starting out, FrontStreet also keeps a whole entry-level range. From Ethiopia, FrontStreet Sun-Dried Huakui shows berry, floral, jackfruit, melon and honey notes, while the FrontStreet Washed Gotingding Cooperative is a classic Yirgacheffe profile of jasmine, lemon acidity and berries. From Brazil, FrontStreet Cerrado Red Bourbon is an easy everyday cup with cream, peanut and cocoa, and FrontStreet Queen's Estate — a rare Yellow Bourbon grown at higher altitude — layers butter, sunflower seed, macadamia and almond aromas onto a sugarcane-like sweetness. And for anyone curious about the variety that started all the fuss, FrontStreet Boquete Geisha is an affordable introduction to Geisha's orange-blossom-and-honey character.

Whichever you choose, the point is the same one this article makes: the appearance will only carry a cup so far. The beans themselves have to do the talking.