Blending Ethiopian beans into China's coffee culture

Years of producing dried fruits, nutritional soup products, as well as beverages helped his team build mature manufacturing systems. In 2019, amid China's booming coffee consumption upgrade, Wang identified packaged freeze-dried coffee as a "blue-ocean" market and established Huichuan.

"At that time, domestic coffee brands were scarce, and the market was long dominated by imported instant products. Unlike the freshly ground store model of chain coffee in the market, I chose to delve into the deep processing track of pre-packaged specialty coffee, focusing on high fidelity flavors, convenient experiences, and high cost-effectiveness," he said.

Wang established a direct procurement supply chain with the local government in 2020.

As the core origin of Arabica coffee worldwide, Ethiopia has top-notch coffee germplasm and flavor resources, which is popular among Chinese consumers. In 2025 China became the fourth-largest importer of Ethiopian coffee, according to a Xinhua News Agency report.

Despite its popularity, Wang identified a structural weakness in the Ethiopian coffee industry: coffee is mostly exported in the form of primary green beans. In order to connect the source supply chain and fill the gaps in the industry, he led a team that would embark on a years-long mission of industrial integration between China and Africa.

In July, Wang's company signed a memorandum with the Ethiopian Investment Commission in Addis Ababa, with the aim of constructing a modern full-cycle coffee deep-processing industrial park in Addis Ababa, integrating bean procurement, sorting, warehousing, deep processing and export.

"We are one of the earliest freeze-dried coffee companies in China to use coffee beans from Ethiopia's entire production area. Nowadays, over 80% of Ethiopia's freeze-dried coffee powder is produced through our company," Wang said.

Powered by the industrial chain, Wang's team developed its own coffee brand named Rami Coffee in 2022, targeting consumers aged 18 to 35, mostly females.