"I used 100 pounds of beans, 30 cartons of milk, and made more than 2,000 cups a week." Since the Spring Festival, the "Penguin Coffee" in Xinshigu Town, Deqing County, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province has been full. Busy from 10 am to 10 pm.
With the return of "fireworks", coffee shops in major cities and towns have also ushered in an endless stream of people.
Under the blue sky, taking a beautiful photo with a high-value coffee in hand, coupled with the exclusive catchphrases of "coffee star" such as "American style, latte while it's hot", Lin Liyun, born in 1995, couldn't help posting news in Moments.
On a wider social platform, a large number of netizens started the shop-exploring mode one after another, and also created "Coffee Quotations" creative posters and emoticons.
In recent years, drinking coffee has become a living habit of young people, and even social currency.
Echoing the enthusiastic pursuit of young people is the increasingly fierce competition in the coffee track.
Tianyancha data shows that as of now, there are more than 174,000 coffee-related companies in my country, of which more than 32,000 will be newly registered in 2022, and the growth rate of newly registered related companies will reach 23.1%; in the past three years, coffee-related companies The average annual growth rate of registrations was 19.5%.
The competition in the coffee market in first- and second-tier cities is fierce. Well-known brands such as Luckin Coffee and Starbucks have begun to sink into third- and fourth-tier cities, which not only brought in the "coffee atmosphere", but also set off a boom in the opening of independent coffee shops.
Third- and fourth-tier cities are becoming important markets for coffee companies to compete.
How "top" coffee is this year's young people
Accidentally discovered that she also likes hand-made coffee, and Lin Liyun gained her first friend after joining the company.
Although they are in different departments, it does not prevent them from recommending coffee beans to each other and meeting for coffee.
Lin Liyun said: "In addition to really liking coffee, coffee is also a social tool for me."
Lin Liyun, who claims to be "heavy coffee dependence", drinks one or two cups of coffee every day, and coffee has become her daily necessities: order Luckin Coffee takeaway with colleagues, drink a cup of seasonally limited Starbucks coffee, or find familiar coffee Baristas buy high-quality coffee beans to make hanging-ear coffee, which they can enjoy in the office; when they go out or meet people to talk about things, they go to niche coffee shops with good environment or amazing products.
She was pleasantly surprised to find that the problem that she was not used to when she returned to her hometown of Quanzhou because of the lack of cafes had been solved.
"Since last year, the number of chain cafes in my hometown has gradually increased, such as Starbucks and Nova Coffee. There are also some niche cafes run by individuals." However, because she cares more about the taste, she prefers to choose the chain brands she has drunk. , "This way the cost of trial and error is relatively low."
"I saw a sentence on Weibo before: When I found that there are more and more Internet celebrity coffee shops in my hometown in third- and fourth-tier cities, it is those young people from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou who have come back." There are snail noodle shops and Internet celebrity coffee shops all over the streets and alleys.
The small coffee shop she is most familiar with has been renovated and opened a second branch, with white walls and mahogany trees, shaded by trees. It has become a new choice for locals to enjoy a cup of coffee here.
"Although I don't have much feeling for the coffee here, but when the weather is good, I can easily shoot blockbuster movies. I am still willing to sit here with my friends for an afternoon." She told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily, looking at the coffee The fashionable young people in the store, and the western-style old people chatting with coffee, "I think this is the attitude towards life brought back from the first-tier cities."
How "high" are young people this year about coffee?
Huang Junyu, who lives in Shunde after 2000, in order to drink better quality coffee, from just to refresh himself in high school, to research coffee types and methods, to go to a coffee shop to work part-time as a barista. Recently, he opened a coffee shop in his freshman year bedroom.
With the wages he earned from his part-time job, he bought a semi-automatic coffee machine. Since then, he has not only realized drinking coffee as water, but also gained new friends in the school who also love coffee.
In the "Add coffee" coffee exchange WeChat group he created, students will meet to taste the American coffee and latte he made, and chat about life together.
There is no coffee shop in the school, and he also built a mini offline "coffee shop" - put two small stools at the door of the dormitory, and put a camping folding storage box in the middle, and the small warm yellow lamp placed in the box emits light through the storage box. Dim light, this is his "coffee table" with his new friends.
Huang Junyu told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that in Shunde, he has been to many specialty cafes, including latte made with "Jinbang buffalo milk" and coffee drinks combined with fried food.
In his opinion, through the coffee drinks in different places, you can also feel the characteristics of life in each place.
"Now I am learning coffee-related knowledge by myself. In the future, I may be more inclined to be a barista first, and then consider opening my own coffee shop."
Big brands bring in the "coffee atmosphere", and independent coffee shops enter third- and fourth-tier cities to find special features
Like Huang Junyu, there are not a few young people who have the dream of "opening a coffee shop".
Compared with first- and second-tier cities, third- and fourth-tier cities whose coffee consumption market is not yet saturated give them greater opportunities.
According to data from Meituan, since the beginning of this year, the number of coffee stores in third-tier cities has grown the fastest, reaching 19%.
In terms of coffee delivery, coffee orders in third-tier cities have nearly doubled year-on-year growth, and coffee orders in fourth- and fifth-tier cities have increased by more than 250% year-on-year. The market has huge potential for development.
"Coffee brands such as Ruixing and Starbucks have cultivated a 'coffee atmosphere', and there is also market demand in small cities. As long as one coffee shop takes the lead, other coffee shops will follow." It was opened on Jingsan Road, which is known as "Shanghai Wukang Road" in Jinan, Shandong.
In recent years, the old buildings preserved on Jingsan Road have been put into use again, and the narrow alley has become an Internet celebrity road for countless young people to check in and take pictures.
"There are even nearly 20 coffee shops within a distance of 500 meters." Hao Ziguang told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily. Very simple, "make simple, good Italian coffee".
At 12 o'clock every day, turn on the music, hang the canvas flag of the hornets, and the 15-square-meter coffee shop will start to operate.
Hao Ziguang's wife, who has many years of barista experience, is the only barista here.
They prefer to call their shop a "community coffee shop". "Whether it's making coffee or chatting, we hope that through our services, everyone will feel as if they are in the living room of a friend's house."
At the beginning of opening the store, Hao Ziguang also thought about whether a coffee shop can win customers only by the quality of drinks?
The words of a coffee colleague let him find the answer: If a store scores 100 points, the coffee quality only accounts for 30%, and the atmosphere created in the store and the personal charm of the owner will share the remaining 70%.
"For the general public, coffee is an imported product after all, and it takes time to integrate into life. The same is true for taste, which needs to be guided slowly." In his opinion, when customers enter the store for consumption, they feel comfortable atmosphere or personalized decoration, and the boss smiles Affinity, coffee taste is also suitable for me, "this may be an entry point for us to make coffee."
Hao Ziguang believes that the boom in opening coffee shops seven or eight years ago was called one of the "four types of entrepreneurship that ruined literary and artistic youth" because "everyone had no experience at that time."
"However, based on the accumulation of years of experience of practitioners, the new stores opened under the wave of coffee in the past two years have paid more attention to the pursuit of coffee shop quality and unique characteristics."
What kind of "adventure" will coffee come to the quaint Jiangnan town?
Relying on sharing the daily routine of opening a store and life in a small town on social platforms, "Penguin Coffee" has survived the epidemic for three years and is "getting better and better".
"Although this is a small town, the consumption and aesthetic habits are influenced by the surrounding big cities. Customers have a high cultural identity and acceptance of coffee, and the cost of opening a shop is much lower than that of big cities." In 2022, the business of coffee shops will even Exceeded the expectation of the manager Xu Chao: 5,000 cups of coffee were sold from July to August. "I thought that October to November would be the off-season, but the sales volume is getting higher and higher. Based on the consumption blessing of the National Day holiday, October's The turnover reached nearly 100,000 yuan."
In his opinion, opening a shop in a relatively small city to make independent brand coffee, "paying attention to quality control can easily be recognized by consumers. Even if there is only one customer today, it is necessary to ensure that this cup of coffee is produced well."
It was mentioned in their Vlog that "the locals who used to drink tea have started to drink coffee", which allowed Xu Chao to see the growing atmosphere of coffee culture in the town.
Today, two new cafes have opened in the town, and the teahouse has also hung the sign of "freshly ground coffee".
Xu Chao believes, "If we can continue to open more coffee shops in the town and create a coffee atmosphere together, we will become better together."
Under the background of the "coffee atmosphere" generally recognized by the public, coffee consumption is becoming more and more popular.
In the third- and fourth-tier cities, whether it is a large chain coffee brand that is about to enter the game or an independent coffee shop that is testing the water, it will be the creator of the atmosphere and the sharer of the consumption dividend.
Shuozhou, a small city in the north of Shanxi Province, has a much less intense coffee atmosphere than other cities.
"But starting from 2020, five new coffee shops have been opened in Shuozhou, and there are more and more emerging coffee shops." Kang Ninghua, born in 1995, is now the manager of the largest coffee shop "Boka" in Shuozhou.
Since opening the store in 2015, he started as the head of the bar and witnessed the growth of "Boka".
He recalled that there were basically no coffee shops in Shuozhou when the store first opened, and it was in a state of continuous losses in the first two years of opening.
"Compared to first-tier cities, most local consumers have not developed the habit of drinking coffee. The customer flow is small, so we need to use good products, environment and services to retain repeat customers."
"Boka" has been looking for its own way of survival: at first it was just a business model of "coffee + a small amount of light meals", and also explored "coffee + Western food", until 2020 began to try the new "coffee + Western food + clear bar" model.
Kang Ninghua observed that there are more and more local young people who like to drink coffee. There are also many young people who come back from other places and foreigners who come to Shuozhou for business trips to stay in "Boca". "These regular customers don't need to order by themselves. We of employees know which coffee they drink.”
He said: "Maybe in a few years, the coffee taste, consumption concept and level of local coffee consumers in Shuozhou will be improved. By then, drinking coffee will become everyone's daily life. Only the coffee industry in the whole city is doing well. Our store will only get better and better."
China Youth Daily China Youth Daily reporter Meng Peipei trainee reporter Tan Yali Source: China Youth Daily
"China Youth Daily", February 21, 2023, version 07