The Chinese coffee market was started to grow about ten years ago. That was 1997. Maybe in 1992, few of cafes independent from grand hotels were established, but not many. So, I would consider the start of Chinese coffee market was about 1997. For example, one of the famous cafe chain in Beijing, Scrupting Times, was established in 1997. This is one of the commercially succeeded cafes in Beijing.

It was about ten years later than in the States, considering the fact that Starbucks started to contact the VC investors in US, and none of them would believe their succeed in the middle of 1980s, for espresso drinks only.

We started to investigate the coffee market in China in 2000, and learnt that the market was started to grow fast.

Since then, more and more cafes established together with more and more coffee roasters and related dealers. There were also a lot of coffee lovers, or called intended lovers. They looked around the whole city to find good coffee and good cafes.

Around that time, 2001, almost none of cafes know really how to brew espresso. The most or all you can see and get were the cup about 200 ml, or 7 oz, for espresso (about 80% full, that was around 6 oz or 160 ml). Only in Starbucks, one can get the espresso in around 30 ml or so, but they were not drinkable, according to the taste buds of most people.

The number of coffee roasters had been increase and so is the number of cafes. But, due to the poor quality of their coffee drinks, very few of cafes can be kept openning till now. The Scrupting Times are very few of them, together with few of others.

Why the number of cafes had been increased? Because the number of opened cafes had been bigger than the number of closed cafes always, even if the number of remained cafes is very small.

Under the name of SCAA or not, there had been several Barista Training centres in Beijing, and world wide recognized espresso brewing skills had been learnt and followed among some of the baristas, including the competitors for the WBC local game for China. The results of that was still poor quality of coffee drinks for almost all cafes in China. They were poor, so that almost no one can get used to drink espresso in China.

I was the first guy to tell people that espresso should be a tasty coffee drink, and to find out the way to make it taste good. In our first cafe, which had been closed for years, few people learnt that espresso can be so nice to drink. Since our cafes were closed and they can not find it any more, none of them drink espresso any more, if you ask any of them. Only recently, the end of 2004, we have a partner as Pass By Bar and their sales of pure espresso drinks occupied 22-23% of the total coffee drinks in cups, which is rather high among the cafes where clients are served by both espresso drinks and drip coffee. Last year, two of cafes opened by our trainees in Peking, and several in other cities.

Let's come back to the Chinese coffee market.

In China, one can find mostly Starbucks, but not any other big chain of cafes. Maybe some small, but not all legal.

(to be continued)