Coffee is just the consumption of life! It's not coffee with no future, it's boutique 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 hall, I was very impressed by Bonmac's proposal of automated process and self-baking (baking) concept store. After returning to Taiwan, I bought the first issue of Japan's own baking magazine at Yonghan Bookstore. The book details more than a dozen baking companies, their own baking associations, 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 burgeoning and 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 that thanks to the popularity of SPECIALTY COFFEE), but also because the industrial competition caused by a large number of stores fell from more than 70, 000 stores at its peak to less than half of the more than 30, 000 stores 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 items of coffee and beans offered are not as rich as those in Taiwan and South Korea, and the ages of investment are also very different. At that time, the style of self-baking was probably a middle-aged business, but now it is mainly based on young people.

The reason for mentioning Japan's own baking industry in the past is that Taiwan is facing such a similar dilemma; the consumption of coffee is growing, but the investment of too many 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 severe knockout competitions. 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 at work, 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, and it is only occasional and difficult to integrate into public life. So after more than 10 years 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 many export manufacturers in Central and South America and Africa are more or less directly or indirectly introducing raw coffee supplies from trading countries at the same time of export decline, 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 producing countries scramble 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 Best of Panama 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 quality and price do bring huge benefits to coffee farmers. However, just like the bumper harvest is 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, various non-coffee traders have been attracted by the fashionable SPECIALTY COFFEE at the same time of the economic recession and rushed to join the coffee industry.

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. You can see that the list of bidders for Jade Manor is concentrated in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. 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 to life after receiving an order of 150 units from China, and caused a lot of 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?

Why should low-income countries in Asia be expected to afford to consume high-priced SPECIALTY COFFEE?

Behind the high price is the low salary.

Is there a future for such an industry?

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.