Coffee, China, Yunnan
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
4
Trip End
Dec 31, 2012
Kunming, Yunnan, China
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Coffee culture continues to take root in China
Changing times have brought with them
changing tastes in China, and nothing quite exemplifies this fact more
than the nation's current love affair with coffee.
Whereas as recently as a decade ago,
international visitors to China looking for a coffee fix might have to
search high and low to find a cafe, these days the likes of Starbucks
and the Hong Kong-based Pacific Coffee are opening franchises all over
the country.Starbucks alone estimates it will
have 400 cafes across 31 cities in the nation by the end of the year
and 1,000 within five years - and its rivals are keeping pace.
McDonald's has said it will soon be opening
McCafes and adding coffee bars across China, Pacific Coffee has its
eyes on 1,000 new sites and the British-owned Costa Coffee wants to
open 250 new cafes across the nation within three years.According to the International Coffee Organisation (http://www.ico.org),
urban Chinese consume around 0.76 kilograms of coffee per year, still a
long way behind world leaders Finland who drain around 12kgs of the
stuff each per year, on average.And so those involved in the coffee trade are looking at ways to attract more and more Chinese over to their brews.One
such way - being championed this month by the people behind Starbucks
as well as Nescafe - is to grow and promote China's very own blends.
Both companies have invested heavily in southwestern Yunnan province
which sits around the same latitude as some of the world's top coffee
making regions in countries such as Brazil. Starbucks has produced the
South of the Clouds Blend while more recently Nescafe has released its
Yunnan Arabica blend.Meanwhile, Euromonitor International (http://www.euromonitor.com)
recently estimated that coffee sales in China were set to reach US$3.6
billion (2.7 billion euros) by the end of 2011, up from US$2.4 billion
(1.8 billion euros) in 2006.The world's
leading coffee consumers (annual per capita consumption): 1, Finland
11.98kg; 2, Norway 9kg; 3, Denmark 7.9kg; 4, Switzerland 7.68kg; 5,
Netherlands 8.4kg.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/coffee-culture-continues-to-take-root-in-china-2143454.html
