Cafés are rapidly expanding alongside their Chinese middle-upper class consumers, with new independent outlets and international chains entering the market and existing players aggressively multiplying across cities. Western style cafés have positioned themselves well as an accessible luxury and are cashing in on their semi-localised strategies, offering an international concept, with adapted products like green tea lattes and red bean scones, costing 2-3 times what they would back home.
Despite a history of thousands of years of tea-drinking in China, coffee is taking over, with an annual growth pace of about 18%, as it evolves from the original prestige status to habitual consumption. Big players Starbucks and Costa are dominating but increasing numbers of Wellington-style independent coffee shops are popping up in tier-one cities as consumers tastes evolve from Chinesified sweetened milky lattes to stronger artisan brews. Specials at big chains like Starbucks include green tea Java chip frappuccino along with a green-tea flavoured cake, but mainstream cafés are increasingly adding flat whites to the mix flat white to the their menu illustrating the shift in consumer taste. Chinese see coffee shops as a destination, not just a place to grab a cuppa - “What we’ve been able to do is build Starbucks into a lifestyle brand that Chinese consumers want to be a part of” - (John Culver - Starbucks group president).
