Blue bottle Coffee Blue Bottle, a different existence from Starbucks Starbucks

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Blue Bottle, a boutique coffee chain that has recently swept California and Japan, continues to open new stores in San Francisco and Roppongi, Japan.

Just entering Japan, Blue Bottle is located in Kiyosumi White River in Jiangdong District of Tokyo. Although it is a cheap residential area in Shimachi, it is not fashionable but gives people a stable feeling. There are Japanese gardens in Edo period, Tokyo Modern Art Museum, cheap food and old-fashioned grocery stores, full of retro flavor. In addition, more than a dozen independent personalized coffee houses have been gathered in recent years, interweaving into a charm of old and new, making this area a popular walking spot in Tokyo.

facts have proved that after the blue bottle moved in, the area around chingcheng and paihe became even more lively. the warehouse style buildings branded with the blue bottle logo were extremely simple and bright, and the coffee roasted and brewed on site often attracted long queues. it is said that when the opening ceremony began, many people even queued for three or four hours in the cold wind to taste the legendary "coffee with soul."

Two years later, it's still hot, the queues haven't dispersed, and it seems to have won the approval of discerning Japanese consumers.

However, there are not many personalized coffee shops in Japan that pay attention to the origin of coffee beans, select their own roasting, brew coffee in a match pot or make coffee by hand. Competition for fine coffee in Japan is quite fierce, and the success of blue bottle coffee is not easy.

Especially when it comes to transnational operations, it is more difficult to become a chain brand with scale. In addition to abundant funds, the founder insists that the soul is the real Know-how.

Originally originated in Oakland, California, founder James Freeman and his pastry chef's wife Caitlin Freeman, in 2002 when founded, but also in the farmer's market stall coffee booth, the first shop is also located in the garage, even seats, two years later established the first physical shop.

Mr. Friedman grew up in California, learning to play solo, and was a romantic musician rather than a number-driven entrepreneur. He was deeply influenced by Japanese culture and always respected the Japanese spirit of professionalism. Therefore, in the first ten years after its establishment, although Blue Bottle Coffee slowly began to operate in chains, he did not want to copy a large number of stores and quickly expand stores. He only slowly opened a dozen stores in the Bay Area of California, New York and Los Angeles. By 2016, Blue Bottle had only twenty-three stores in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Not only that, but also in the spring of 2015 into Japan, a very short time to impress picky Japanese coffee lovers, until this year, has opened in Tokyo, Kiyosumi Baihe store, South Aoyama store, Shinjuku store and Roppongi store and other four branches.

There is even a saying that "Blue Bottle Coffee Sparks Tokyo's Third Coffee Wave."

In the past, people often used the Starbucks experience to express the charm of Starbucks. Today, Blue Bottle uses the word "soul."

This "soulful" coffee chain comes from the passion and persistence of founder Mr. Friedman, who once reported his story in early 2015 under the title "Do One Thing Well in Your Life."

Mr. Friedman imported his own raw beans, baking and grinding them. The coffee brewing machine is more exquisite, from RMB 200,000 siphon machine, each time it takes more than 10 hours to process Japanese cold drop coffee machine, expensive Clover machine, everything in the store.

In the first decade, Freeman transformed his passion and focus on coffee into the operational process and product characteristics of Blue Bottle Coffee. Not only pay attention to coffee quality and flavor, he is very important to coffee drinking, dressing and other details, no matter which branch, insist on using their own strict selection and roasting of coffee beans, and only sell coffee beans roasted within 48 hours, the coffee powder must be used within 45 seconds after grinding, customers order food and then by professional baristas cup by cup hand, these many exquisite, only to ensure that the coffee personality and delicious can be fully tasted by customers.

Friedman, who insisted on doing one thing to the extreme even if it was just a cup of coffee, obviously moved consumers who had the same enthusiasm for coffee, and successfully captured the hearts of investors. Although the turnover was only 20 million US dollars, he raised 46 million US dollars in just four years.

In addition, he personally planned and designed each store, whether it was a factory, a warehouse by the sea, or an old theater space, to blend with architecture and local culture, presenting a minimalist, bright style unique to Blue Bottle. Take Palo Alto, California for example, located in a 50-year-old theater and community exchange center. There are spacious spaces and seats inside and outside the coffee shop for people to read or discuss freely.

His intention and management characteristics create a charm for Blue Bottle Coffee and create an emotional connection between the brand and people.

This charm fits well with the consumer consciousness and humanization wave that has emerged in the high-tech industry in recent years, and has won the favor of many celebrities in the US technology industry. They are not only loyal customers of Blue Bottle, but also vying to become its shareholders.

The first to invest in Blue Bottle in 2012 was Bryan Meehan, founder of Nude, a natural care product and a venture capitalist engaged in environmental goods. He introduced Mike Volpi of Index Venture, a veteran of the technology industry, to join, and then gathered the founders of Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Uber, etc., as well as James Biggar, Google Ventures, Morgan Stanley, etc., who once followed Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Meehan, who later became CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee, persuaded Friedman to speed up the store and expand into Japan, and used the funds raised to help Friedman realize his innovative vision for coffee evolution.

After Blue Bottle successfully opened its first store in Kiyosumi Shirakawa, it soon opened its second store in a shady two-story house in Aoyama Lane, Tokyo, and its third store moved into Log Road, a new landmark in Daikanyama, in the form of a coffee kiosk. The craze for Blue Bottle Coffee continued to burn in Japan, and sales rose rapidly.

However, in Friedman's view, entering the Japanese market is not only an expansion of the business for Blue Bottle, but also an opportunity to upgrade the overall quality.

He believes that many small coffee shop operators in Japan have the spirit of professionalism, enthusiasm for coffee and persistence, which is consistent with the spirit of blue bottle, and Japan's service quality is recognized as top-notch. He hopes to apply the management learned in Japan to American branches.

According to media reports, in order to achieve this goal, Blue Bottle Coffee did not adopt a joint venture or licensing method as Starbucks did when it first entered the overseas market, but set up a legal person in Japan to invest and operate itself. This approach is expensive and cumbersome, but it is easy to grasp the direction.

Blue Bottle is the leader of today's personalized boutique coffee shops. It has stepped out of the pattern of regional boutique coffee chains and strided towards internationalization. The future development and direction will be a major indicator of the third wave of coffee.

It remains to be seen whether it will take the world by storm like Apple and become the coffee industry's premier boutique brand, but at least it has broken the spell that personalized stores are not easy to chain.

Friedman not only pays attention to every step and detail of coffee making, but also is a very idealistic operator, which is his characteristic, and perhaps because of this style and Jobs, Blue Bottle is regarded as the Apple of coffee industry.

The success of Blue Bottle Coffee is worth learning from many enterprises that emphasize the spirit of craftsmen, but always compromise their souls for scale. How to imitate the blue bottle, insist on keeping pure soul, and strike a balance between scale and refinement, personalized balance, this is our biggest challenge to develop handicraft innovation and intangible cultural heritage redesign.