How Did Temple Coffee Become Popular? Why Are Young People Enthusiastic About Visiting Temples to Worship?

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Recently, the most popular attractions have been zoos with pandas and temples featuring both the God of Wealth and coffee shops.

Since this year's Spring Festival, post-90s and post-00s generations have accounted for nearly 50% of people booking temple scenic area tickets. Temples that house the God of Wealth or feature coffee shops have become particularly popular check-in destinations for young people.

Why Today's Youth Love Visiting Temples

Why are young people visiting temples? Here's how netizens responded: "Between work and self-improvement, I choose to burn incense," and "Between systems and relationships, I choose a Zen-like attitude." Some netizens jokingly suggested that perhaps it's because they know relying on themselves doesn't work, so they can only rely on gods.

From these responses, we can see that contemporary life is truly challenging... When young people visit temples, they may be seeking a place to settle their restless souls. Listening to the sound of wooden fish, smelling the incense, sitting quietly under the banyan trees, releasing stress and anxiety - all this allows them to return to reality with a calmer heart, clearer thinking, and renewed love for life.

Visiting temples is about gaining new spiritual support, so when facing challenges, they can comfort themselves with "It's okay, good fortune is yet to come." Similarly, drinking coffee is also a ritual - consuming caffeine to energize oneself for new challenges.

The Rise of Temple Coffee: More Than Just Novelty

The popularity of temple coffee isn't just about novelty - it's about achieving "dual effectiveness."

For young people, while visiting temples and drinking coffee are essentially different activities, their goals share some similarities.

Even though temple coffee shops are often criticized by netizens for inconsistent quality and unprofessional service, young people's enthusiasm for temple coffee remains unstoppable. Because temples + coffee provide what feels like a "dual effectiveness" encouragement for young people.

Temples emphasize atmosphere and experience, while coffee emphasizes trendiness and the effects of caffeine. Spiritually, temples bring peace; physically, caffeine stimulates and helps alleviate anxiety. While the effect might be minimal, as long as it can help someone feel energized, that's enough.

Mutual Growth Between Temples and Coffee

Temples regaining young people's attention isn't just due to anxiety - the coffee shop at Yongfu Temple deserves significant credit. Compared to opening traditional tea houses in temples, coffee shops create a sense of contrast that not only brings new perspectives to the coffee market and fresh experiences for consumers but also supports the temple's incense business.

Even now, many netizens still consider temple coffee "inferior," claiming that visitors aren't genuinely praying and that coffee breaks the temple's tranquility. However, temple visitors have traditionally been predominantly middle-aged and elderly, which isn't sustainable for temple operations long-term.

The young people attracted through various innovations, merchandise, and contrasting elements might just be passing through, but perhaps they can gain new perspectives on temples, find spiritual solace, and thereby develop greater interest in them.

For coffee and coffee shops, compared to unchanging product names and similar decorative styles, a coffee shop named "Ci Bei" (Compassion Cup) serving an Americano called "Di Fan" (To Wash Away Worries) - these Zen-inspired names resonate with Chinese people who appreciate symbolic meanings, and also capture the hearts of anxious young people.

Temples need to explore new markets, attract more young people's attention, maintain current operations, and lay the groundwork for the future. Coffee shops also need temple settings and experiences to bring new perspectives to innovation in the coffee industry.

Image source: Internet

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