Editing | Zhao Lei

Operation | Yueyi

Perhaps the city's coffee shops have rolled up to a certain extent, social media, one after another. "The coffee accelerated sinking to the county," the argument appeared. Coffee industry self-media curry door, said the county small store sales rose tenfold in five years.

In the end, who will open a coffee shop in the county? When I first threw this question to a boutique coffee industry KOL, the answer was "dreamer it". The other side followed by saying, are sinking into the county, can still be called a coffee shop?

Huang Wenqing is the "dreamer", just this past October, his coffee shop "ideal country" opened in Yongan. When choosing a location, Huang Wenqing to the east of the city to the west of the distance - is also the county's largest area of traffic - walked once, walking only 20 minutes, and finally selected the two connected to the front, in the foot of the rotten building shopping malls, a month's rent only need to 6,000 yuan.

Yongan is located in Sanming City, Fujian province, and if you zoom in a little, this county-level city surrounded by mountains has very little presence. Its popularity is less than one-tenth that of next-door Shaxian. Like most counties in China, it has lost a significant number of young people to Quanzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen in the last decade or so.

It's a small county with no coast, few overseas Chinese, and even less coffee culture, where first Little Deer Tea opened, and then Ruixing six months ago, with students from vocational schools and neighborhood residents feeding the store. At nine o'clock in the evening on a weekday, the five tables in Ruixing's store are filled with people, and take-out workers come in and out. The clerk was busy explaining to customers how newcomer coupons work and what a raw coconut latte tastes like, while not stopping to put out cups. Immediately before and after this National Day, at least four coffee shops opened in Yongan - two new stores, a small local chain, and a second store by Rexall.

Counties are diverse and complex. This tiny sample of Yongan may not represent the entirety of China's vast counties, but it can still be a window into how coffee consumption is sinking into the counties. We came here and tried to figure out, who actually drinks coffee in the county? What kind of stance do county coffee shops take? And, does the county even need coffee and coffee shops?

Photo / Screenshot from the Japanese drama "It's a Long Story About Me"

What does a good coffee shop look like? As early as when Huang Wenqing planned to open a coffee shop in the county and researched in advance, many people gave him an accurate generalization: small store, large flow of people, good equipment, stable quality, and preferably more urban white-collar workers working overtime in the vicinity. In Shanghai, such boutique coffee shops are scattered throughout the city's core, from Seesaw, where you can order a cup of coffee and enjoy the afternoon, to Manner, where you can take a cup on the go.

But for newly minted coffee shop owner Huang Wenqing, his store has none of these characteristics, and is even the exact opposite: he rents a 140-square-foot store that seats 30 to 40 people for dine-in; the coffee machines are made by Huijia, a company that uses the most advanced technology in the world, and the coffee makers are made by Huijia. The coffee machine he uses is the Huijia 310, a common household machine, which was found from the second-hand market together with the bean grinder, and the total **** only cost 5,000 yuan, and every day people ask him "can your machine still hold up? The problem is not an important one.

996 of the bitter people are not, winter after six o'clock on the dark, the busiest commercial plaza in the small county, carousel and amusement park neon lights up, a brand in the plaza set up a stage to do promotions, invited "clowns" blowing balloons, the stage in front of the crowded adults and children. The atmosphere was like everyone passing by was having fun.

It's hard to judge everything here by the commercial logic of the big city, although from day one, all sorts of questions have surrounded Huang Wenqing and the owners of these coffee shops in the county: who would like to drink coffee in the county? Won't it turn into a boarding house? Can we survive by selling coffee?

Huang Wenqing never bothered with these questions. Before opening the store, he went to the largest local coffee shop, sat down and counted the head, and was surprised to find that after nine o'clock, the store is still bustling. He thought to himself, "Maybe Yongan can accommodate another coffee shop?

But opening a coffee shop in the county is destined to be counterintuitive, not understood by city white-collar workers and not understood by county residents. Huang Wenqing's father brought his friends to support his son's coffee shop, and they had no qualms about asking, "What's your son opening, I can't understand it," and Huang's father echoed them, "I can't understand it either.

From the first day of the store, all kinds of compromises and changes have been staged in the county coffee shop. On the Internet, some people say that the hometown coffee shop doubles as a business barbecue, and every day people are drinking and boxing until midnight, and there are also coffee shop owners who laugh at themselves online, "not selling cold skin is the last stubbornness".

There is at least one **** of knowledge that doesn't require research: when you open a store in the county, add as many caffeinated beverages and milk teas as you can; that kind of pure coffee is a tough sell.

Sparkling water is the most common coffee companion at Yongan's coffee shop, and it can also be a single item. The week that Huang Wenqing's coffee shop opened on a trial basis, the second-hand Huijia 310 went on a temporary strike, and the influx of customers drank sparkling water for a week without a single person thinking it was unusual, and in the days that followed, the best seller was a soft drink called Peach Boo Boo. A clerk at another coffee shop said that in the year or so since it opened, no customer had ever asked her about bean flavors, and in this store, the best seller was lemon tea.

Empty bottles of sparkling water in the store. Photo / Xie Chan

The most popular has to be the Raw Coconut Latte, which sells twice as much as the second place at Rejuvenate. Raw coconut latte also naturally appeared on the menu of other coffee shops. Huang Wenqing doesn't care about consumer comparisons, and he even enjoys hearing customers say, "Your Raw Coconut Latte doesn't lose to Rexall.

He also bought all the drinks from Ruixing, just to study how to make the taste more popular, and finally found that Ruixing, which can penetrate the sinking market and capture more people, has the biggest feature of being sweet enough. So in their own menu when the deployment of new products, other people often worry about this drink will not be too sweet, Huang Wenqing will only say, "No, not sweet enough".

There are also those who want to go more "traditional". Yongan people Pan Wenbin and Minnan people Lin Guanheng *** with the investment of the quality of the museum boutique coffee also opened in Yongan. In the official profile of the quality of the Museum of coffee, this coffee shop originated in Shanghai, claiming to have opened the third wave of boutique coffee on the mainland. But in the process of opening the store, they found that it is too difficult to perfectly replicate a Shanghai boutique coffee shop in the county.

When the team from the headquarters came to Yongan for the first time to visit, there were signs that made them hesitant. After finally convincing the HQ people to open up access with sincerity, Pan Wenbin had almost no experience with coffee, for example, no one ever told him that the coffee machine needed to be in and out of the water, and when the HQ's coffee machine arrived, he realized the loophole and had to redo the bar.

For the renovation, HQ gave them two design options, and the one they chose was supposed to be the Polka Dot rooftop at Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport, but that was beyond the capabilities of the local renovation team. The interior design team also had very little to choose from, either nodding their heads or refusing to budge on too many ideas, so the coffee shop, which could have opened in a month under the headquarters' planning, was stuck in Yongan for several months, while the next door neighbor, who rented the store together and sells pig's feet and rice, opened the store in just three days.

Recruiting a good barista is even harder. In most county coffee shops, the clerk will bluntly say that there is no barista, or explain in a veiled way, "Our baristas are trained and can be recognized". A coffee shop clerk said that the store's employees are both milk tea and coffee, before there are professional baristas to apply for jobs, but ultimately rejected the applicants, "on the one hand, can not afford to open a high wage, on the one hand, also think that burying people's professional talent". Ruixing's store employees said, Xiamen area stores recruiting new people will be required to train for 90 hours before they can be on duty, but in Yongan, new people can be on duty after 60 hours of training.

In spite of this, these "unlike" coffee shops have opened one by one.

Photo / Screenshot from the TV series "Just Thirty"

Ideal Country may not be a standard café, but it's certainly a standard Netflix store.

Huang Wenqing's idea is very simple, all the design and set are centered on the two principles of "cheap" and "suitable for photos", any corner of the photo does not look good, will be pushed back to start again. Huang Wenqing's store has the most complete net red single: Eucalyptus leaves, ins style vertical glass cups, petal cushions, the original wood style dining cabinet, David sculpture ......

All of these are from the small red book and Taobao brush, the preparations for the opening of the store in the days of the day, he spent at least three hours a day on these software. He is convinced that big data is useful and will let you know what people in this era like, what their needs are, and what kind of cloths are sought after by girls.

Before opening the store, Huang Wenqing went to Fuzhou Xiamen to explore the store, met the details of the good-looking note down, he is very frank, the store desk arrangement, from the Fuzhou net red bookstore Kirin book seems; door head road signage inspiration, a lot of net red stores have appeared; toilet paper towel wall is the most praised, but also one day to brush the net red toilets to see. Finally, industrial style, ins style, log style, the three hottest photographic style have been moved to the store.

The dissemination of information in small counties also relies on Xiaohongshu and the same city jitterbugs, from the first day of the store, Huang Wenqing in Xiaohongshu to update their own store diary, titled "100,000 yuan back to the county to open a cafe". The water and electricity of the rotten building can not be solved, the store bought greenery arrived, what things are taken out to say to the netizens, there is a momentum to create a foster store. The same city jitterbug spread fast, next door to the barbecue store's stereo connected to the owner's cell phone, accidentally brushed to the local hot post, "Ideal country boss has something to say ......", the video of Huang Wenqing's voice echoed in the square.

Coffee stores in the county also invite Little Red Book bloggers to visit their stores. Azizi is one of them, and she keeps 29 shop-hunting posts on her Little Red Book. Although it is a shop-hunting blogger, but in Yongan, 300 yuan a post, store owners are too expensive, most of the time, after some bargaining, the pay will shrink to dine in free food, as long as to write a grass post.

The young people who are keen to clock the coffee shop are the most common crowd, Huang Wenqing's brother exclaimed, living in Yongan for so many years, it seems that he has never seen so many young people. This Sunday afternoon, none of the guests will let go of the opportunity to take pictures, greenery area and under the signboard of the door are always people posing; a lady with a beret holding a cell phone, told his mother a moment to the bottom line of the lens frame to their feet, this is the most common photography composition teaching on the Little Red Book; five teenagers riding heavy motorcycles parked their bikes, began to take turns to sit across the chairs to take pictures, holding their heads high, making a The five teenagers on heavy motorcycles parked their bikes and began to take turns sitting across the chairs to take pictures, holding their heads high and making all sorts of cool, wild and explosive movements.

There are also those who come to take pictures of products, which in cafes in other cities is considered commercial photography, and usually comes with a hefty extra venue fee. But Huang Wenqing never refused these people, "in the county to open a store, the most fear is not lively." Products that have been photographed here include snacks and sodas. There is also a pair of couples from the next county to shoot the wedding, the bride brushed from the small red book to the store, attracted by the INS style photos, decided decisively to come here to shoot the wedding.

In a way, the county cafe is a product of the Netflix era. Young people chasing fresh things come here through the Internet, and return the photos harvested here to the Internet. These photos will be labeled as "high rate", "collision of ins style and industrial style", "pretending to be in Korea", etc., and appear in Xiaohong book, circle of friends and Shake voice. Huang Wenqing said that recently there are even people from Fuzhou Xiamen to card.

At the entrance of Ideal Country, young people are clocking photos. Photo / Xie Chan

Even the former experience of opening a store to learn the art first is no longer applicable, big data and short videos will teach you everything. Not only the decoration, even drinks and desserts can be learned on the spot. Recently, Huang Wenqing began to pound the lasagna cake, also followed the short video software to learn, turn the car to the nth time, and finally able to spread out a decent crust.

And then the buzz, a question that can never be avoided is whether it is profitable to open a coffee shop in the county.

Perhaps in time for the National Day, Huang Wenqing the first month's turnover of more than 40,000 yuan. In the following days, as long as the weather is good weekend, the store will also be full of people, he calculated, according to this trend, to the New Year may be able to return to the capital.

The young people brought by the fermentation of Xiaohongshu and the circle of friends are the most primitive accumulation of traffic in the coffee shop, but they are not necessarily transformed into stable consumption.

A big problem with opening a coffee shop in a county is how to price it. All the raw materials of the quality museum coffee are bought in accordance with the requirements of the headquarters, and the quality should be exactly the same as the store in Shanghai. Just that semi-automatic coffee machine, spent 100,000 yuan, Pan Wenbin is very sure that this is the most expensive one coffee machine in Yongan.

During the trial period, in order to attract customers, all the drinks in the quality of the museum coffee are discounted, Americano only 9.9 yuan. But this kind of price is difficult to exist in the long term, the renovation cost of Quality House Coffee is said to be as high as 700,000 yuan, Lin Guanheng can only always emphasize, "look at the long term, do not look at the immediate interests."

Even if it reverts to the normal prices on the menu - which average in the early twenties, and are already at 60% off compared to the Shanghai stores - it's still an awkward pricing range for Yongan.

Chestnut cake and Americano at Qiguan Coffee, $35 and $9.90 respectively. Photo / Xie Chan

Yongan's per capita salary is not only not comparable to Shanghai's, but also to Fuzhou's Xiamen. A local civil servant said that ten years ago his salary was 3,000 yuan, to the present, is still the same figure. Not only that, the year-end bonus is also less and less every year. Although the Maserati and other luxury cars parked along the streets of the new district to visit the headquarters team of the Quality Museum to reduce concerns, making them believe that there is a consumer population here also have the ability to spend, but this is not the bottom of the county. County residents are price-sensitive, in the busiest shopping district, used to solicit customers signs, is still 10 dollars of pasta and 28 dollars of filet mignon.

Just Coffee, which has been open for more than a year, has also experienced a price cut. Although no one will point out to their face that they think the prices are too expensive, the store staff is keenly aware that it is always the cheapest drink that sells the best. The owner, Auntie Wang Er, is worried that at this rate, customers will find it difficult to get a better drink and may not come back next time.

There are old stores in the county that have stood the test of time, and in its sixth year, Mocha Le Café opened a branch next to the movie theater. A friend of Aziz's took a stake in the business, and she was privy to the fact that the new store had paid back its capital during its opening.

But Mocha Le isn't strictly a coffee shop; the store also sells spaghetti steaks and a variety of baked goods, and county residents like to choose Mocha Le for their children's birthdays. In addition, the founders of Mocha Le also own a Korean restaurant, a candy store, and a pastry store, and during holidays and promotions, the five stores almost always join together to sell generic coupons.

Unlike the city's stalls, where takeout coffee is the norm, Yongan's coffee shops are almost always dine-in centers. A two-storey store with two paved areas is standard, and the Mocha Le coffee shop, recognized by Yongan people as the best in business, has three full floors of frontage.

Before opening, Pan Wenbin studied the two stores with the highest takeout volume in the county, and found that one was Milk Tea Guming, and the other was Ruixing. Pan Wenbin and Lin Guanheng clear, when a store's takeaway unit volume of more than 50% of the time before it is possible to enter a benign state of development. But for the county coffee shop, this seems to be a difficult target to reach, a coffee shop clerk who has been open for more than a year, said that the takeaway orders are in the single digits, she and her friends around her, if they order takeaway, they will also prioritize some of the chain milk tea brands.

In the county, the coffee shop's competitors are often not another coffee shop, but the more common milk tea store, teahouse, Pan Wenbin considered doing milk tea before opening, but after the inspection found that the county is too saturated with milk tea stores, the competition is more intense, but the coffee shop can be made to differentiate themselves, that is, to provide a public **** space to drive the consumption of drinks.

But in Yongan, the turnover rate and ping effect pursued by big city restaurants are difficult to guarantee. Trial operation half a week, Pan Wenbin to the manufacturer to expedite the new order of a few tables and chairs, can not control the turnover rate, on the expansion of reception capacity. Huang Wenqing is often envious of the barbecue restaurant next door, guests eat and go, immediately ushered in the next table. One day the store was flooded with schoolchildren, two or three people ordered a drink to share, take care of cleaning up the afternoon, but the turnover is only a few hundred dollars.

The good thing is that a lot of raw materials can be solved on the spot, tomato sauce is missing to go to the supermarket to buy, do soft drinks need fruit is also next door to the fruit store to buy.

Huang Wenqing is now accustomed to observing every day, in addition to taking pictures of the girls, those with children's mothers, a little older aunts, how much. If it is difficult to establish the coffee consumption habits of a place, it is only when the coffee shop really becomes a space for citizens to live, it is possible to go farther. But right now, no one can give a good solution.

Figure / Japanese drama "My business is long story" screenshot

Almost all the people who opened the store have a good vision buried in their hearts, to bring the coffee culture back to Yongan. It's not that Huang Wenqing doesn't want to open a boutique coffee shop, but in all the time he's been in business, only one customer has told him they want to drink hand-pressed. The coffee culture here has yet to be enlightened. Even Pan Wenbin himself didn't have much contact with coffee before he met Lin Guanheng.

Back to the logic of the business, unlike the city, which has a stable coffee consumer base, what kind of cafes can be retained in the county, and what kind of consumers can be attracted to the cafes, is a headache.

In Yongan, Ruixing's large coupon for newcomers still has a strong attraction, and the store, which has been open for six months, makes a lot of raw coconut lattes for 9.9 yuan a cup every day. Customers will ask the question "latte is iced or hot", compared to coffee, the street kuey teow, tea, barbecue may be more urgent need to exist.

With all this in mind, Lin Guanheng's idea is to "be a leader, not a follower". But whether to change the local consumption habits, or to integrate into the lives of local people, Pan Wenbin and Lin Guanheng have a little disagreement. In the end, Pan Wenbin only said, "You have to change them, tell them that you can not play cards here, next time they will never come back." Lin Guanheng was silent after hearing this.

Change is indeed a difficult thing, and the atmosphere and qualities of the county will enter the café. Every time Auntie Wang returns to Yongan's café, she feels a kind of "noise", not caused by the sound of the coffee machine roaring or the screams of naughty children, but a kind of urban, boiling noise. Here, people don't consciously lower their voices, the man at the window argues about who should shuffle the cards in this game, and the older women pour out their woes on each other, talking only about family and parenting.

Wang Er Aunt went to Shenzhen in 2018 to develop her career in the fashion world, an industry where people always have coffee in their hands, and slowly she developed the habit of waking up early or having a cup of coffee in the afternoon. But in Yongan, she has never felt that casual, relaxed atmosphere that comes with drinking coffee.

For those who are a bit younger, drinking coffee is a ceremonial thing, something more grand than everyday life. 20-year-old Azizi has three days off a month, which she spends visiting stores. Azi, who doesn't care much about what she wears and doesn't wear makeup to work, will go against the grain on this day and make sure to put on her makeup and pretty clothes.

Azi always pays more out of her own pocket, and can't be sloppy when ordering. She recently went to a new store that sells lasagna for 30 dollars, and she went over it in her head, and it's the most expensive lasagna in Yong'an, more expensive than the most famous pastry house in the county by 5 dollars. If it's tasty it's not a big problem, but once you step on it, "it's going to be very heartbreaking for the money."

She also aspires to the outside world, even if the salary is not too high, but also will save money to go to the favorite city to play. There's not much to do in Yongan, especially for someone who has lived here for more than two decades and is familiar with every corner of the city. She and her friends only get a little bit excited when new things - those Netflix cafes and Netflix cakes that are all the rage on Little Red Book - show up in Yongan. Those things will make people forget the dullness of real life for a short while.

Young people do value the environment and atmosphere more. Pan Wenbin also opened a spring pancake store in the county, in front of the RT-Mart, a small stall store because the baking of spring pancakes is always stuffy, and the environment is not so neat. Here, he offered 5,000 yuan salary is also difficult to recruit young people, the store has been left behind two aunts. And when the coffee shop opened, the young people did not hesitate to choose the coffee shop with a salary of only 3,000 dollars.

Despite the fact that it's an online coffee shop, Huang Wenqing has carefully studied coffee marketing books, and he agrees with the concept of the "third space" that Starbucks implemented when it entered China in the early days. Someone asked him what the most important thing is to open a coffee shop in the county, and he replied, "Don't focus on the coffee, focus on the social atmosphere and customer experience.

Of all the lists of good things that are detached from the real world, the coffee shop is undoubtedly the one with the most accessible imagery, and in the county, the coffee shop became a way for ordinary people to visualize a life that was laid-back, cozy and modern, where they were temporarily unaccustomed to the bitterness of coffee in terms of taste, but were already psychologically moving toward a more refined life. It's something that will be equally useful to middle-schoolers escaping from school every week, and housewives stuck with bills and chicken wives.

Here, when they describe a café in Netflix terms, it just means it's stylish, sophisticated and brings joy. After all, a good place to go on a date is paramount in barren county life.

(Azizi is a pseudonym)

Photo / Korean drama "Do you want a cup of coffee? Screenshot