Students full of beans over rise of coffee shops

Western-style cafes are booming on college campuses as the number of foreigners studying at China's universities rises, and returnees cling to the habits they developed overseas, as Luo Wangshu reports.

A waitress prepares coffee at Sculpting in Time, a popular cafe chain around Beijing's campuses. Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily

Isabella Greene, a US student in Beijing, regards Harney & Sons, a coffeehouse near Beijing Language and Culture University, as the definitive cure for homesickness.

"It's very similar to campus coffee shops back home ... the music, the decorations, and especially the coffee. I can spend the whole day here, doing my homework or seeing friends," the Kentuckian said as she nursed a large cup of cappuccino.

As the number of foreign students rises, especially in mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, US-style coffee shops are springing up at colleges and universities to cater to their needs.

Demand looks set to continue rising. In 2013, more than 356,000 foreign students studied in China, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Education, a year-on-year increase of 8.58 percent, while last year saw 56,000 international students attend universities in Shanghai, making the city China's second-most-popular study destination for foreign students, according to the local education commission. Now, the municipal government aims to raise the number of international students at the city's colleges to 15 percent of the total student body by 2020.

Meanwhile, the ever-growing number of young Chinese heading overseas for study has seen returnees bring back a range of Western influences, from music to literature, movies to meals, including an addiction to coffee.

According to research conducted by Mintel, a market researcher in the UK, the number of coffeehouses in China doubled from 15,988 in 2007 to 31,783 in 2012.

It's no coincidence that most are situated close to educational establishments, because ever since the world's first "coffeehouse" opened in Oxford, England, in the early 1650s, they've been associated with universities, the avant-garde and intellectuals.