Search Popularity Surges Nearly 5000%, Chinese-Style Coffee Goes Viral!

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange

The Rise of Chinese-Style Coffee

From coffee brands to coffee beans, from creative drinks to café decor, coffee in China has become steadily more "Chinese-style" in character.

Whereas people once searched for "ins-style" and "petty-bourgeois fresh" cafés, today the hot keywords are "Chinese style," "national trend," and "Chinese retro."

According to data from lifestyle-service e-commerce platforms, in the third quarter of this year searches for "coffee + art" keywords rose 3025% year-on-year. Since the start of this year, user searches for "specialty coffee" increased 207% year-on-year, while "Chinese-style coffee" search popularity soared 4713% year-on-year.

Two forces drive the surge. First, the rise of local coffee brands has brought coffee prices back down to affordable levels. Second, the quality of Yunnan coffee has improved continuously in recent years; combined with strong support and promotion from local brands - and the broader trend of championing domestic products - more and more consumers are developing a deeper understanding of Chinese coffee.

Meanwhile, as the new generation of consumers craves "national trends" and "local culture," many coffee shops cater to the public by blending their style and drinks with representative local foods, culinary traditions, and classic aesthetics. Through this cultural resonance, coffee - a foreign product - is finding its own Chinese path.

Debate and Innovation in Chinese-Style Coffee

Serving coffee in traditional Chinese tableware, decorating in traditional Chinese styles, creating coffees around regional culinary cultures - whether these developments are good or bad is up for debate.

But as visually driven creatures, humans gradually close the distance between Chinese consumers and coffee through product design and packaging. That acceptance then extends naturally to promoting Yunnan-grown coffee, and eventually to forming a coffee culture that can represent China.

Chinese-style coffee can't yet rival established schools like the Italian, Japanese, or Australian styles - but they all share one thing in common: every one of them was once pushing at its own boundaries. No style was recognized from day one; only daring attempts and sustained promotion earn recognition in one's own region first, and from there, the world.

Future of Chinese-Style Coffee

Although Chinese-style coffee has yet to develop its own distinctive extraction method or a coffee culture familiar worldwide, these continuous, multi-directional innovations all matter. They repeatedly capture mass consumers' attention and have become everyday conversation topics - good news in itself.

Whether Chinese-style coffee can ultimately form its own school remains to be seen. But at minimum, it lets Chinese consumers feel that coffee belongs in daily life - it can be brewed as delicately as tea, and like new-style tea drinks, holds endless creative possibilities. Only through continuous innovation will more people come to accept coffee.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The best way to taste how far Chinese coffee has come is to drink it. FrontStreet Yunnan Arabica (small-bean) comes from Baoshan, washed and medium-roasted, revealing soft nut and chocolate sweetness with a touch of plum acidity - the gentlest possible introduction to Yunnan's terroir at a friendly price. One step up sits FrontStreet's 2013 Yunnan Typica, grown on FrontStreet's own estate from one of the oldest and purest Arabica varieties: natural-processed and medium-roasted, it layers dark berry tones, caramel sweetness, chocolate, and dried apricot over a black-tea finish.

Those who prefer their Yunnan in espresso form should try the FrontStreet Black Cocoa Blend, which pairs Yunnan small-bean coffee with Brazil Cerrado: the Brazil supplies mixed-nut aroma and balance, the Yunnan contributes chocolate and citrus, and the resulting Americano is sweet-sour-bitter in harmony with nut and red-sugar notes - while as a latte it pours out silky almond and cream. A fitting showcase for just how good Chinese coffee has become.