BIZCHINA / Biz Life |
Is coffee the new black?By Erik Nilsson (China Daily)Updated: 2007-03-02 10:40
China might be known for its tea traditions, but today, it's brewing an increasingly sophisticated coffee culture. As a growing number of Chinese develop a taste for the traditionally Western beverage, their knowledge of coffee is becoming more complex. "There is a greater awareness of coffee in China than then we first started selling it in China," said managing director of Arabica Coffee Roasters Stuart Eunson. Having helped shape the culture in its early days, Eunson knows well how far China's coffee culture has come since Arabica first entered the Chinese market in 1994.
They were familiar with the word and with the marketing, but not with the product. However, it didn't take long for a fledgling coffee culture to percolate into urban Chinese life. "In less than a decade, it went from taxi drivers in Beijing not knowing what coffee was, to it becoming part of the colloquialism," Eunson said. The speed at which Chinese took to coffee is demonstrated by the 90 percent
increase in total volume sales in China between 1998 and 2003, when it reached
6,504.5 tons. Demand for coffee more than doubled between 2001 and 2006 and is
currently estimated to be growing by 10 percent a year, according to the
International Coffee Organization (ICO).
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