Foreign media: the amount of coffee per capita in China is less, but the Chinese coffee market has great potential.

Professional barista communication, please pay attention to coffee workshop (Weixin Official Accounts cafe_style)

Coffee started relatively late in China. In the early days, only high-consumption groups or returnees were interested in having a cup of coffee in cafes. Over time, the domestic coffee market has undergone earth-shaking changes. As an important part of the world coffee market, China has attracted much attention from foreign media. Let's take a look at the coffee market in the eyes of foreign media.

Recently, foreign media said that coffee is squeezing into the Chinese market dominated by tea culture, where coffee consumption is likely to change from the bottom of the world to the world leader. China accounts for less than 2% of global coffee consumption, but the industry is beginning to change.

Richard Chien opened a coffee shop in northeast China in 2005, the BBC website reported on July 14. At that time, a group of budding baristas could brew about 900 cups of coffee a day, at a price of 6 yuan per cup-less than $1. Ten years later, he runs an upscale coffee school in Beijing. There, students spend hours learning about the aroma and tasting techniques of coffee beans, which cost $6 a cup.

China's "economy has changed and people are becoming more aware of different lifestyles." Richard Qian said,"They don't just see tea anymore."

Coffee consumption in China has nearly tripled in the past four years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, leading all the large markets it tracks. The potential of the Chinese market is enormous: the country has a population of 1.4 billion.

Starbucks is so confident in China that it plans to open its first international baking and experience center in Shanghai next year. The company believes China will become its biggest market. The Seattle-based coffee chain already has more than 2000 stores in China and plans to add 500 stores a year for the next five years. Dunkin 'Donuts, another American coffee chain, announced last year that it would add more than 1400 stores over the next 20 years, an increase of nearly 100 times.

The growth in coffee sales is evidence that China is transforming into a consumption-driven economy, driven largely by changes in the spending will of an expanding middle class. More and more Chinese are traveling abroad, sipping espresso in Japan or finishing term papers in coffee shops in the United States. Unlike their parents, many of China's younger generation grew up surrounded by coffee shops.

"It's right at the sweet spot of discretionary household spending." Gao Zicheng, an investment professor at Peking University, said he co-authored the book "Understanding the Chinese Consumer in an Hour: Five Short Stories about the Cruel Struggle of a Billion Consumers." Coffee still seems like a hobby to many Chinese, but it's a luxury lifestyle not far away.

Coffee seems to be an anomaly in a slowing chinese economy where demand for other commodities is falling. The country's huge population base and largely untapped market offer unprecedented opportunities.

According to market research firm Ouray International, the average Chinese drinks three cups of coffee a year, putting them near the bottom of the global rankings, just ahead of countries like Sudan and North Korea. By comparison, Americans drink an average of 363 cups of coffee per person per year, and Britons drink 250 cups.

China's thirst for coffee has "revolutionized the global supply chain," said Xiaoshan Lei, managing director of China Market Research Group. Coffee growers need to decide how to produce more beans for them to cater to Chinese tastes. "This has happened before, when demand exceeded supply, causing coffee prices to soar until growers increased production."

The company estimates coffee consumption in China will continue to grow at about 20 percent a year, and Lei attributes much of that change to women under 30. "Instead of buying Louis Vuitton bags, they're turning their attention to experiential consumption." "Coffee culture is part of that," he said.

Both taste and cost pose a threat to China's emerging coffee market, especially outside urban areas where living standards are higher.

"If you compare a coffee shop in China, especially a high-end coffee shop, with coffee shops in California and Boston, you'll see that they sell less coffee per day." "It's not a growth spurt," says Peter Redosevic, a trader at Royal Coffee, a California coffee exporter.

For coffee to truly succeed in China, it will have to convince less-visited regions that it can complement or even replace tea--especially for some unique coffee varieties.

The Wall Street Journal website reported that China's demand for goods may be slowing as the economy slows, but coffee-even if expensive-is a rare bright spot in a country with a tradition of tea drinking. Analysts say demand for other luxury goods, including imported fresh fruit, is also growing rapidly, driven by changing tastes and a rapidly growing middle class.

Coffee represents "a Western lifestyle that appeals to the urban upper and middle classes," compared to tea, which is seen as a more traditional drink, according to Rafiye Oberti, food and beverage analyst at BMI Research.

Taiwan's Zhongshi Electronic News once reported that some coffee experts said that if each person in the mainland drinks 20 cups a year, the price of coffee in the world will rise threefold, which shows the great influence of the mainland on global coffee.

In general, in the eyes of foreign media, although China's per capita coffee volume is still small, China's coffee market still has great potential.