Coffee machine made into installation art, S.ENGINE Eagle Collection to explore more forms of expression of boutique coffee

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Shanghai is the city that likes coffee best in China. According to Jiamen's China Caf é Survival data report, there were 5567 cafes in Shanghai at the end of 2016, more than 2200 more than Beijing in second place and three times as many as Guangzhou in third place. Moreover, the coffee culture in Shanghai has deep roots. With the entry of Western culture from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, there are occasional twists and turns, but it continues to this day. When the third wave of coffee represented by boutique coffee rises in Europe and the United States, the first city in China to follow is naturally Shanghai.

S.ENGINE Eagle set Coffee introduced today is also a typical boutique coffee shop brand in Shanghai. The first store opened in Shanghai Xintiandi Shikumen, a total of two floors, the space design is very unique. The transparent first floor, the spiral staircase similar to the concert hall, and the installation art made of coffee machine have attracted a lot of attention.

The location of Shikumen can be said to be an excellent location. It not only radiates 11 office areas, covering white-collar workers who have a rigid demand for coffee, but also has many non-local tourists, which can reduce the impact of coffee in winter and summer. In addition, in such a position, itself is an advertisement for the brand. Therefore, in the view of founder Wang Juntao, the rent of 600000 yuan a month is not expensive, which is not only the rent but also the advertising cost.

The art of coffee machine installation hanging in the middle of a rotating staircase

Wang Juntao lived in South Korea for ten years, engaged in business consulting and coffee trade. After returning to China, he once served as a boutique coffee chain brand CEO. Last year, he founded S.ENGINE Eagle set Coffee, hoping to achieve the boutique of coffee shops in terms of products, space design, and personnel services.

First of all, from the point of view of the product, the factors that determine the quality of coffee are coffee beans, baking technology, the skill of baristas and making utensils. Eagle set Coffee has a special team looking for high-quality coffee beans from all over the world. At the same time, they have their own high reputation baking manufacturers in the industry, which can ensure the stability of raw bean purchasing and baking. In terms of baristas and utensils, Eagle set has star baristas (winners of national flower-drawing competitions and hand-brewing coffee competitions) and first-class appliances, such as the EK43, which is known as the king of hand brewing, the embedded coffee machine MAVAM, and the Slayer with pre-soaking function. Among them, Slayer is used to make espresso, but it has a pre-soaking function similar to hand-brewed coffee, which can better extract the aroma of coffee.

Of course, making a good product is the most basic. Wang Juntao believes that when all boutique coffee shops can achieve a higher standard of products, the more important difference lies in how to build brands and provide consumers with value-added experience outside the products.

Spatial experience is one of the most important points. Shimura Miura, a Japanese writer who studies the sociology of consumption, mentioned in the fourth consumption era that when a society transitions from the third consumption era to the fourth consumption era (China is in this stage), people's consumption behavior is not just to get satisfaction from owning goods, but to socialize and connect with others through consumption.

As mentioned at the beginning, the space design of Eagle set Coffee is very characteristic. They set aside a large area of open space on the first floor, which can not only increase the transparent feeling of the space, but also improve the rate of take-out. Halfway between the first floor and the second floor, they took apart an Italian coffee maker to make an installation. Wang Juntao himself is a design enthusiast. In his view, the McDonald's era when all stores are the same is over, and now each store should bring a different experience to consumers. Therefore, the design of Eagle set Coffee will not be limited to Nordic style or Chinese style, but return to the nature of coffee for different creative play.

In addition to space, baristas (Brista) also play an important role in boutique coffee shops, affecting both production and user service. And brain drain is a common pain point in the catering industry. In terms of talent reserve, Yingji Coffee wants to make long-term planning, giving baristas a higher-than-average salary and a complete promotion path. Barista training is divided into seven stages, when reaching the highest level, there are two directions to continue to develop, one is the management direction, become the business manager, the other is the technical direction, participate in the competition to become a coffee master, and then train talents.

We know that from operating one store to more than one store, it will be much more difficult to manage, so a rigorous operational management process is needed. In this regard, there are two examples to illustrate the practice of Eagle set on standardized operations. The first example is that the espresso production process is broken down into a standardized action, which is done by three people, which can guarantee six cups of coffee in eight minutes. In the second example, the dishcloth of the coffee machine is required to be washed and recorded every 15 minutes. The cost of managing a single store in this way is high, but it is good for expanding stores in the future.

Although it is a boutique coffee, the price of Eagle set is similar to that of Starbucks, and the average price of Italian and hand-brewed coffee is 35 yuan. At present, an average of 500 cups are sold every day, of which about 50 cups of handmade coffee are sold. The monthly flow is about 770000 yuan.

-

Postscript:

Finally, let's talk about our views on domestic boutique coffee.

In the process of paying attention to the upgrading of domestic tea and coffee consumption, we found an interesting phenomenon. Compared with the popularity of tea upgrading in the past two years, the upgrading of coffee shops is more low-key, and many people hold a wait-and-see attitude, believing that boutique coffee is synonymous with a minority. (Seesaw, which recently received Hony investment, is the first boutique coffee shop to receive investment from mainstream institutions. Compared with the time and number of tea brands that have received capital injection, it is earlier and more numerous. )

There may be three reasons. First of all, the upgrade of tea is from 0.1 to 1 (from milk tea stalls to tea shops), and the upgrade of coffee is from 1.0 to 2.0 (from Starbucks to boutique coffee), so the upgrading of domestic boutique coffee is not as rapid and extensive as tea beverage. but a long-term and diversified process, currently mainly concentrated in first-and second-tier cities; second, there are fewer boutique coffee chains, mainly independent stores. Because of the playability and complexity of boutique coffee, as well as the ideas of operators, the price of coffee in independent stores is very high. Third, it is precisely because of the high price and the halo of "boutique coffee" that casts a threshold for boutique coffee shops.

But in fact, if the operator does not deliberately set the threshold, but brings good coffee, good space and cultural attributes to consumers at a reasonable price, the market feedback of the store will not be bad. Because for consumers, this is not an elite consumption away from the masses, but a coffee shop with a better experience.

The Seesaw we have reported, and the S.ENGINE Eagle set Coffee introduced today, are such representatives.