The coffee market is expanding in China.
The Shanghai 2025 International Culture for Culture Festival brings together more than 350 stands and nearly a hundred world quality coffee brands on April 30, 2025.
For many Chinese, starting the day with the aroma of coffee has become a morning ritual. Although China has long been a tea consumer country, a craze for coffee takes root, stimulating an booming industry.
Most consumed coffee beans come from Yunnan, in the southwest of China. This region benefits from a subtropical climate and high altitudes, ideal conditions for the cultivation of high quality grains.
According to provincial authorities, in 2024, coffee plantations in Yunnan covered more than 84,400 ha, with an annual production of 146,000 tonnes, or more than 98 % of cultivated areas and the country’s coffee production.
The American coffee chain Starbucks, present on the continental part of China for more than two decades, had 7,758 points of sale at the end of March 2025, covering more than a thousand cities. The company also invests in the local coffee culture, especially in Yunnan.
Jia Ziyi, Ambassador of the Coffee for Starbucks China, confides that the company offers free training to local producers and encourages the cultivation of high quality grains. “Over the past decade, the proportion of Yunnan coffee grains that passed the quality tests of Starbucks has increased from 20 % to 80 %,” she said.
In China, for China
Yunnan coffee was once considered relatively mediocre. Several factors initially limited its potential: an still stammering coffee know-how among local cultivators, climatic hazards and damage caused by insects. This resulted in uneven quality and modest valuation on the markets.
In 2012, Starbucks began working with the provincial government of Yunnan to develop new varieties of coffee and disease -resistant coffee and illness, and installed its first farmers’ support center in Asia in the province. At the end of September 2024, the center had formed more than 36,800 local farmers.
The American giant has implemented an advantageous remuneration policy in order to stimulate the production of high -end coffee in the Yunnan. The company acquires grains 20 % to 30 % above market prices and also pays additional bonuses for special grains that meet or exceed its quality standards.
To improve its supply chains, Starbucks opened its coffee innovation in Kunshan (Jiangsu) in 2023, an hour’s drive from Shanghai, which houses the largest number of cafes in China. This installation worth 1.5 billion yuan is the largest center for the manufacture and distribution of coffee from Starbucks outside the United States. In this 80,000 m2 park, Arabica coffee beans from more than 30 countries and regions, including China, are roasted thanks to low carbon technologies before being conditioned and distributed in Starbucks brands across China.
Starbucks China has also adapted its products to the demand of Chinese coffee enthusiasts to strengthen its presence on the market. On April 7, the company unveiled a range of cafes for customers concerned about their health. Its new dissociating technology aromas and sugar allows consumers to compose among 500 taste variations, while controlling their sweet contribution.
KFC launches in Grand Premier in China its freeze -dried coffee from Café du Yunnan, the largest café producer region in the country, located in the “golden belt” of coffee culture on the Tropic of Cancer, in Kunming, on February 21, 2022.
A market transformation
In China, the coffee market is booming. According to Iimedia Research Group, a Chinese Data Consulting and Analysis Company, the coffee industry in China is expected to exceed 1,000 billion yuan this year. The report on the urban development of coffee in China 2025 indicates that at the end of 2024, Shanghai had 9,115 cafes, establishing itself as the city with the most coffees in the world.
While brands like Tim Hortons from Canada and Costa Coffee of the United Kingdom continue their expansion in China, local players such as Luckin Coffee and Manner Coffee reinvent the rules of the market. With more than 20,000 establishments across the country, Luckin Coffee has bet on competitive prices and an aggressive digital strategy. More and more coffee channels are established in small cities and rural areas to explore these potential markets.
The new brands are storming originality at coffee festivals, which gain popularity. During the “Indigo X Coffee Youth Day” festival held from April 3 to 6 in Beijing, the brand Proud Mary, founded 15 years ago in Melbourne, Australia, met an enthusiastic reception.
Brodie Roberts, Managing Director of Proud Mary, says that the brand offers “curious and wild” coffees, with grains from Salvador, Honduras and Panama. “The event allows lovers of Chinese coffee to taste Proud Mary’s products for the first time,” she said. Alex Lees, also of the brand, praised the remarkable creativity of Chinese brands in their approach to flavors and treatment methods.
Visitors taste coffee and take advantage of the literary atmosphere in the village library in the village of Zhenshan, in Suzhou (Anhui), May 11, 2025.
Innovative mixtures
In the Ouïgoure autonomous region of Xinjiang, in northwestern China, milk tea is the traditional drink of local inhabitants. But coffee has won over more and more customers. Founded in 2019 in Xinjiang, the N44 ° Café brand now has 12 establishments in the region, offering coffee prepared with local ingredients.
Wang Sisi, founder of the brand, explains that she offers “the last tear of the Atlantic”, “Beautiful girls like flowers” and “The salt of Lake Tianchi”, all these drink names are inspired by emblematic sites and local culture.
“The last tear of the Atlantic” is distinguished by a milk foam with rosemary garnish, giving a refreshing taste close to a mojito. Its color goes from blue to green when you move it, evoking the spectacular landscape of Lake Sayram, a natural jewel nicknamed “the last tear of the Atlantic”.
The creation “Beautiful girls as flowers” (Guli Meimei) draws his inspiration from the rich traditions of the Xinjiang. Composed of several layers of local fruit, it is surmounted by a slice of dried apple and harmoniously combines notes of strawberry and apricot. Its name, borrowed from the Uïgoure language, literally means “flower”. More surprisingly, the drink “Le Sel du Lac Tianchi” offers an unprecedented taste experience with its slight salinity, recalling the waters of this famous mountainous lake.
“Our customers are not only looking for a dose of caffeine. They want quality, creativity and a multisensory experience in each cup, ”underlines Ms. Wang.
We also observe innovative mixtures between coffee and special China products. In 2023, the famous Chinese brand of white alcohol Kweichow Moutai and Luckin Coffee launched a new product together: a Moutai flavor coffee. Another brand, Coffee Backpackers, in the Guizhou province, in southwest China, also mixed coffee with local rice wine.
Coffee Zhi, a coffee brand based in the province of Henan, in the center of China, mixed coffee with Hulatang, the traditional spicy soup of Henan. We first prepare this soup by boiling beef, tofu and spices, then mix it with a yunnan espresso and a black sugar syrup to create a balance of flavors.
Founded in 1669 in Beijing, the Pharmaceutical Tongretang company created in 2018 the brand Zhima Health. This innovative subsidiary offers original coffee-health concepts, such as its Goji berries with recognized therapeutic virtues, such as eye protection and prevention of liver and renal conditions.
Liu Minghui, founder of Aini Garden, a subsidiary coffee group Aini based in Yunnan, notes that young Chinese people attach great importance to the origins and techniques of roasting of coffee and show increasing confidence in local productions.
According to Yunnan customs statistics, the province exported 32,500 tonnes of coffee grains to 29 countries and regions, including the United States and Germany in 2024, a spectacular increase of 358 % compared to the previous year.
Mr. Liu believes that Yunnan coffee has considerable potential. “China is still at the bottom of the world industrial chain. National producers must invest massively to improve coffee quality, ”he concludes.
*Li Xiaoyang is a journalist at Beijing Information.
