Shenwen | it's not coffee without future, it's specialty coffee with no future.

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In 1993, when I went to the Muzhang International Food and Beverage equipment Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan, I saw the development of Japan's own baking industry at that time. In the exhibition, I was very impressed by Bonmac's proposal to automate the process of own baking (baking) concept store. After returning to Taiwan, I bought the first issue of Japanese self-baking magazine in Yonghan Bookstore. The book details more than a dozen baking companies, their own baking association, as well as their own baking teaching, management, and so on. It can be seen that when this magazine was published, its own baking industry was already a new and developing high-growth industry in Japan. At that time, the concept of "specialty coffee" did not rise, and Japan's own baking industry already had a similar prototype, no matter in raw beans, baking, brewing, and promotion on a considerable scale-except that there was no strong marketing through competition, teaching and certification.

That time was the beginning of Japan's economic bubble, and a large number of white-collar layoffs indirectly contributed to the rise of self-baking (similar to the rise of self-baking in Taiwan in recent years, except thanks to the popularity of specialty coffee). However, it is also because the industrial competition caused by a large number of store opening has dropped from more than 70, 000 stores in its peak to less than 30, 000 stores in less than half of its peak in a short period of 10 years. Although there was the rise of specialty coffee in the later period, it is obvious that Japan is not as enthusiastic about specialty coffee as South Korea and Taiwan. apart from a few hot spots in Tokyo, there are few other cities, and the variety of coffee and beans offered is not as rich as that of Taiwan and South Korea, and the age of investment is also quite different. At that time, the style of self-baking was about middle-aged business, but now it is dominated by young people.

The reason for mentioning Japan's own baking industry in the past is that Taiwan is facing such a similar dilemma; coffee consumption is growing, but too much investment from operators in a short period of time has created a situation in which too many people are in short supply, and they are not only facing a severe knockout stage. Large-scale chain restaurants and various industries are also looking covetously to enter covetously by virtue of the scale of capital operation.

The economic stagnation of the past 20 years has released a group of promising young people who were originally working in various industries, especially in the information industry. these people are also tired of the huge pressure on their jobs, find a release gap in coffee, use their advantages in the original industry, and want to change the control of the traditional coffee industry, actively participate in the specialty coffee industry, and dominate the coffee trend through various reforms, but After all, this kind of coffee is the idea of the middle class, what's more, the middle class is an ethnic group that disappears one by one during the economic stagnation, which is higher than the price of traditional coffee, so it can only happen occasionally, and it is difficult to integrate into public life. Therefore, after more than a decade of vigorous development, it has entered the current phenomenon of stagnation in the specialty coffee industry.

The most obvious phenomenon of the stagnant development of the specialty coffee industry is the inexplicable increase of small bean merchants. In an export-oriented country like Taiwan, it is obvious that while many manufacturers in Central and South America and Africa export decline in export, they more or less directly or indirectly introduce raw coffee supplies from trading countries, or even forced to barter into Taiwan.

Why are there more pipes for raw beans to be imported? The most important reason is "overproduction"!

The rise of the specialty coffee industry, under the hype of bidding and competition, has not only improved the quality of raw beans, but also gradually raised the transaction price. Coffee farmers in countries of origin compete to produce high-quality raw coffee beans. Anyone involved in the bidding for Panama Best of Panama will know that since 2004, there were only 11 lots of beans in the first Best of Panama (BOP) best Panama auction, with an average price of $2.89 per pound, but in 2012, the average price reached $24.83. the price of a single batch is more than $100 per pound.

I started bidding for BOP in 2008, and I remember that there were still unbidding lots of US $5 per pound, and the Geisha of this batch alone was amazing, and then the price of geisha was almost doubled every year after the independent bidding of Jade Manor. At the same time, there is a large-scale rush for seeds of geisha. Taiwan also introduced geisha varieties about five years ago. This year's (2017) coffee exhibition should have many Taiwanese coffee farms to launch geisah coffee. Of course, as a result of the oligopoly of varieties, the taste spectrum of geisah becomes poorer and poorer, unlike the distinct tropical fruit flavor of the past, but it is difficult to match the flavor of new varieties in the short term, and it should last for quite a long time.

The success of GEISHA has led to the high quality and high price of coffee. Coffee farmers are scrambling to improve the quality of coffee in order to get a better price. Such a price does bring rich benefits to coffee farmers. However, just like a bumper harvest at the same time when the price collapses, such a price is not affordable to ordinary consumers. Those who promoted specialty coffee at the beginning also faced inventory pressure. Coffee farmers who do not want to be bought by international raw bean merchants at low prices have no choice but to find their own way out. The obvious phenomenon is that coffee farmers who used to wait for buyers in the mountains have traveled thousands of miles to Asia. Of course, all kinds of non-coffee traders have been attracted by the fashionable specialty coffee in the economic recession and competed to join the coffee industry.

There are only two places in the world that play specialty coffee crazily to the point of almost belief: Taiwan and South Korea, and now I want to add a third: Chinese mainland! Because young people in these three places can't see the future-- Zheng Daoyao

However, the high price of the specialty coffee is not affordable to the general consumer, so it did not attract widespread attention in the major consumer countries, and the initial development was very slow, until young people in Asia (actually Taiwan and South Korea) could not see the future in the recession, while specialty coffee found the stage and specialty coffee found support.

If you can take a look at the list of bidders for Jade Manor, which is concentrated in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, it is clear that many well-known brand coffee equipment manufacturers that have declined have also found a second spring in Asia (which is of course related to the rise of China). What impresses me most is that a special avant-garde coffee machine brand originally planned to stop production and carry out inventory promotion. Unexpectedly, it came back from the dead after receiving an order of 150 units from China, and caused many copycat phones to copy.

In the past five years, the specialty coffee industry, which can not enter Europe, seems to have found a bright future in Asia, with young people investing heavily in the seemingly glorious fashion industry. (in fact, the so-called Asia refers to Taiwan, South Korea, and a little bit of China)

However, Asia has no coffee culture, no coffee drinking habits, and most importantly, Asia does not have a high income sufficient to support specialty coffee consumption. If even high-income countries such as the United States, the birthplace of specialty coffee, and Europe, high-income countries with a deep coffee culture, can't afford the high consumption of specialty coffee, why should Asia's low-income countries be expected to consume high-priced specialty coffee?

Is there a future for such an industry in Asia?

I am not optimistic about the future of specialty coffee at all.

It's not that coffee has no future, it's specialty coffee that has no future.

Coffee is the consumption of life, only by returning to the level of life to look at coffee, we can clearly understand what coffee should look like, life is not to show off professionalism, life is not to chase fashion, life is not to pretend -!

Remove specialty, coffee is the real coffee.