The Chinese began to prefer coffee and American media: attracted by the Western way of life

Core tip: industry insiders say that China's coffee consumption is growing at an annual rate of 15%, while the global average rate is 2%, so China is the fastest growing coffee market in the world.

Us media reported on Sept. 21 that demand for goods in China may be slowing as the economy slows, but coffee-even if expensive-is a rare bright spot in a country with a tradition of drinking tea.

According to the website of the Wall Street Journal on September 16, California-born Jimmy Lee came to China four years ago to open a coffee shop.

Reported that these days, more and more customers in the coffee shop, in his Ocean Grounds coffee shop, the price of a latte is 38 yuan. Li said that at first, the customers were mainly young white-collar workers and returnees in the city, but now they range from "young to old". It's really hard to say who the average customer is. "the market is developing rapidly."

Demand for goods in China may be slowing as the economy slows, but coffee-even if expensive-is a rare bright spot in a country with a tradition of drinking tea. 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 is a good illustration of this change, the report said. According to Euromonitor, Chinese consume only 4.5 billion cups of coffee a year, far less than in North America, where people consume 133.9 billion cups of coffee a year. Coffee consumption in China will rise 18% between 2014 and 2019, compared with 0.9% in the United States over the same period, according to Euromonitor.

Coffee represents "a Western way of life that is attractive to the upper class and middle class in cities" compared to tea, which is seen as a more traditional drink, according to Lafayette, a food and beverage analyst at BMI Research.

This could be good news for coffee prices, the report said. The price of coffee has been weak due to oversupply in the market and the devaluation of the Brazilian currency.

Coffee is one of a range of goods that could benefit, including gold and silver, as China's economy shifts to consumption rather than exports and state investment, according to Barclays.

According to the report, China has a large population and is the largest consumer of some goods. China consumes about 30% of the world's rice production. With only 1% of the world's coffee consumed in China, the growth potential of coffee consumption will be huge.

David Thorne, head of the global consumer industry at National Bank of Australia, said: "when it comes to such a huge [gross domestic product], the growth of about 7% is huge."

Despite the economic slowdown, wine and chocolate are also one of the increasingly popular products for China's urban population. Although Beijing's anti-corruption campaign has curbed sales of both products, analysts expect demand to grow as people's tastes change. The National Bank of Australia said the data show that as people transition from the lower class to the middle class, their consumption will also change dramatically, such as wine consumption will increase by more than 700%.

Coffee companies are betting on growing demand for the drink in China, and some are making their products sweeter and have a little more milk to cater to Chinese tastes, said Obeidi of BMI Research. Large coffee chains such as Starbucks and Pacific Coffee have branches in big cities across the country and have ambitious growth targets. Chinese mainland has 823 stores, and the company hopes to increase its number to 3000 by 2019.

Demand for Pacific Coffee, which has about 400 stores in Hong Kong and Chinese mainland, is also expected to grow strongly over the next five years.

According to the report, a spokesman for Pacific Coffee said in an email: "the emergence of more and more foreign cafes in China has also promoted the popularity of coffee culture in this country." Returnees have also brought their overseas experience back to China. " The rise of the middle class has contributed to the prosperity of China's coffee market, she said. (compiled / Liu Xiaoyan)

Source: reference message Network