Recently, I am in Guangzhou to develop the local market for the Barista Training of Kaffa Cafe. Our Barista Training Centre was established at the beginning of 2007.

Now, I am training some students. Yesterday, they told me that the cafes, which I suggested them to go to see if they need more baristas or not, are almost all closed. Only few of them, which they did not go, was not known yet.

For Beijing, the situation is almost the same, or a bit of better. Most cafes are kept alive mostly by more investment, not their income. If the owners are not able to invest more, they have to be closed.

All those facts told me that, the quality of coffee drinks can be a kernal elements of a cafe. Although, people do not quite understand it, mainly for the reason that they do not know the difference between a well made coffee and not well made ones. It can be very big, from tasty to awful.

A Fiction Story.

Many people believe that, most or almost all local people (clients) do not know the tastes of coffee drinks, and therefore, they would accept what they get from the cafes. But, the fact is, people may not know the reason of those bad coffee drinks was from the preparation of the cafes, but they simply learnt that ocffee is never tasty, so they won't drink coffee, or very seldom to drink coffee any more. That is the real fact that happened locally in China.

*$s not able to do it, Illy not able to do it, none except few cafes with a little profits.

In Beijing (Peking), almost two brands of cafes can be successful. One is the Pass By Bar, and the other is Scrupting Time, which have horrible espresso made of Illy beans for years. They got continuously training from Illy, but the result, as confirmed by their boss in front of me, it is not drinkable.

Few others can be survived due to the location where there are enough people who do need somewhere to stay, like new XiuShui, where one can find a cafe of Lavazza, and SPR, a local brand of chained cafes. But, clients can find their sulotion by ordering only beer or coke. So, some of cafes may also change from prof machines to small super-auto, or even totally removed.

It is sad, only simply the fact in China.

Except *$s, none of other international brands can be survived, at least in Beijing. I know some of them are still there, but the way to keep them alive is simply money, their more and more investment. they all know it very well by themselves, for sure.

For our trainees' cafes, the business became more and more hard because more and more people believe that coffee drinks can never be good tasted. So, we have to find other ways to let them try our coffee. that is the first step, and also the hardest step. But, in any case, we have to do it, and finally, we made it.