Rise of the Coffee Bean

When it comes to the drink of choice in China, tea with its long and storied history is the first thing one thinks of. Most restaurants will provide tea free of charge for you to drink with your meal, whilst people across the country can be seen carrying flasks on their person to be drunk during the workday. Teahouses are also very common, and often a sit-down and a taster session are required before settling on a leaf that you are happy with. Other than this though, teahouses do not really function as a place to spend an afternoon nor a place to have a chat with a friend. Like in many other countries, cafés very much fill this hole. The consumption of coffee in China has grown year on year which has had a knock-on effect on not only the choice of coffee available at supermarkets, but also the proliferation of cafés – both big-name corporations as well as independently run coffeehouses.

Similar to pretty much everywhere else in the world, Starbucks can now be found all over the country while Costa is also making some pretty big inroads, as well as other brands like Caffe bene and Lavazza. When I picture a Costa outlet in the UK I generally picture drab cafés on train platforms however what is common in China amongst all these chains is that they are quite upmarket. Unfortunately this is matched by the price, and what you will often find is that even when taking the currency into account, coffee at Costa and Starbucks is more expensive in China than it is in the UK or US. Presumably this is how they keep out the riff-raff though I pretty much consider myself amongst their number and wish the price wasn’t quite so prohibitive.

Apart from the bigger outlets, smaller independently-run cafés are also very common. These tend to be grouped in certain areas, frequently near universities. Unlike the more homogenous main brands (decorated in their pastel shades and replete with a pretentious jazz soundtrack) these smaller cafés are generally decorated by the owner and the décor reflects their individual taste and style. People generally like to be more artistic in their design and often there are some really interesting places to go. On the downside the coffee often doesn’t work out much cheaper than the chain stores, which I can only assume is a result of a country-wide conspiracy amongst coffee purveyors to drive up prices (as opposed to say – high import prices). As somewhat of a philistine when it comes to the fine art of coffee brewing and consumption (I usually drink granulated coffee at home) I am not really in a position to comment on the quality, however it seems pretty much fine to me.

As a final point, when the weather is disgustingly hot in the summer they do provide a much-needed haven of air-conditioning. As a final final point, public toilets in China are notoriously bad so if you are out and about and feel the call of nature do yourself a favour and find a Starbucks – bliss.