The Story of the Coffee Man: brother Continental and his "Coffee"

A scene in a coffee shop

Person's business card:

Brother from the mainland, real name is Zheng Lu

The most Coffee Club and the founder of Eurasian Coffee Research Society

Individual Coffee instructor of Hangzhou Coffee Dream College

Excellent players in the finals of the 2016 WCE World Coffee roasting Competition in China (top 10)

During the study of coffee, Zheng Lu's foreign appearance and free and unrestrained style were often mistaken for non-Chinese. So he simply regarded himself as a "brother from the mainland," and began to wander around with this title. Over the past six or seven years, he has accumulated a lot of fame and awards, and he can be regarded as one of the top coffee people in China.

In fact, before engaging in coffee, Zheng Lu was a professional stock trader. "at that time, with the ups and downs of the stock market, he was always nervous and anxious." As a result, he became more and more eager to find a quiet inner world, and he began to bake coffee beans and cook them for himself and for his friends. Unconsciously, he unexpectedly "played" out of the jianghu status. Friends drank his coffee and praised him, and some coffee lovers also came to ask for advice. So he bid farewell to the financial circle and began his long road to coffee study.

Coffee means different things to everyone. Some people simply regard it as a drink, some people use it to refresh themselves when they stay up late and work overtime, and some even want to drink coffee to be elegant. However, for mainland brothers who are obsessed with coffee, coffee is more like a kind of "Tao". Different production processes will make coffee different in aroma, acidity, sweetness, bitterness and aftertaste. As a result, he regarded the process of studying and brewing coffee as a "spiritual practice" one after another in his life, and jokingly called everyone who came to drink coffee a "Taoist friend."

With the rise of coffee culture in China, large and small cafes are springing up in the streets of the city, the consumer groups of coffee are gradually growing, and coffee has entered the lives of ordinary people in Fuzhou. People who run cafes more or less have some feelings and dreams, and most coffee drinkers yearn for poetry and distance. But how many people really love coffee and understand it?

Brother Lu smiled helplessly. He had heard of many baristas who rushed out and set up their own business after only a few days of study, and witnessed many shops selling coffee mixed with all kinds of sauces. Once, he served his guests with hand-made boutique coffee, and the guests unexpectedly disliked the strong milk flavor without instant coffee and asked for cream. Brother mainland can only patiently explain that the cream added to instant coffee is synthetic, not dairy products, and long-term consumption is bad for the body, so he does not recommend adding cream.

Most baristas use quick methods to cater to the market taste, and most guests' impression of the cafe only stays in an elegant and comfortable environment, often ignoring the nature of coffee. Brother from the mainland understands that there is a long way to go to introduce really good coffee to everyone and improve the "coffee taste" of the public. Therefore, he opened the Eurasian Coffee study Society at 466 Tongpan Road, Fuzhou, not only selling coffee, but also teaching coffee, hoping to promote the real coffee culture to more coffee lovers on his own.

Brother mainland believes that as long as you put your heart into it, domestic coffee beans can also perform well. "at first, I asked for the most expensive, the best-rated and the best-known. Later, I found that these 'most' are not equal to what I am looking for. A cup of expensive coffee may not be as good as a cup of domestic boutique coffee."

He collected more than 200 outstanding boutique coffee beans from all over the world and conducted repeated comparative studies, but finally decided to vigorously promote Chinese boutique coffee. This is not only because of his preference for domestic products, but also because he firmly believes that with his superb baking and brewing techniques, as well as the improved coffee cultivation and processing techniques that constantly communicate with local coffee farm owners, domestic coffee can make the fragrance of domestic coffee as good as that of foreign coffee. Just a year ago, he adopted and named a thousand coffee trees in Jinggong Manor in Mojiang, Yunnan Province, and the coffee fruit from these trees was used exclusively for his shop. Brother mainland said, "I don't just talk about supporting domestic products."

The location of the coffee shop can be called daring. After tasting brother's coffee from the mainland, a guest could not help feeling, "how many brushes did you dare to open the coffee shop in this position?" The elder brother on the mainland was very proud to hear the praise. for him, the daily struggle for gold is not as good as a sincere compliment from a Taoist friend.

Rather than busy with busy roads all day, he prefers to stay in his secluded pavilion, listen to music leisurely, refine his coffee skills every day, and occasionally take two or three apprentices and meet four or five friends.

Brother from the mainland seldom shouted for his own coffee, and later he found that buyers were generally better than him as a seller. After tasting the coffee in the store, many guests feel that it is simply outrageous for such a good coffee to meet a boss who is so lazy to publicize, so they will spontaneously run to each other and recommend it everywhere, attracting a lot of new customers for brother from the mainland.

One day, a new customer walked into the store. After tasting the coffee, he picked up his mobile phone and photographed every corner of the store, and quickly sent out a circle of friends-"A wandering artisan who is not mixed with jianghu flavor, a simple and warm craftsman with pure coffee flavor." (Wen / tr. by Phil Newell)