Beijing, April 17 (Xinhua) — Reference News recently published an article titled "A Cup of Coffee, Building a New Bridge for Guiyang's External Exchange". The full text is as follows:
During the just passed Qingming Festival holiday, when many famous tourist attractions were crowded, many young people in Guiyang, Guizhou Province opened up their own leisure world: savoring the aroma of a cup of boutique coffee in the streets and alleys of the old city.
Without producing a single coffee bean, there are coffee shops everywhere, and Guiyang is also known as the "City of Coffee Champions" in southwestern China. A cup of coffee has built a new bridge for Guiyang's external exchanges, and is also filled with the new vitality of this inland city.
Lei Ming (right), the manager of "Blackstone Coffee", introduces a creative coffee to customers (photo by Yang Wenbin)
The 'Coffee City' nurtures the 'Coffee Champion'
Within a 3-kilometer radius, there are over 20 boutique cafes. Out of town tourists wander the streets and alleys, searching for coffee shops hidden in the deep alleys.
The permanent population of Guiyang is about 6 million, and the number of registered coffee shops in Guiyang has exceeded 3000, with a density of about 2000 people per shop, surpassing Shanghai (with a density of about 3000 people per shop) and becoming one of the cities with the highest density of coffee shops in China. This data is currently maintaining a stable growth trend.
Why has Guiyang, located in the southwest, become the "City of Coffee"? Some media outlets claim that this is related to the "comfort gene" inherent in the people of Guizhou. According to the data from the "China Better Life Survey" in 2023, Guiyang ranks among the top five cities in China in the list of "willing to spend money to please oneself". Some media also believe that this is because Guizhou people are naturally fond of sourness and have their own understanding of the sourness in coffee.
Since 2005, the first batch of boutique coffee shops such as "Joyful Reading Time" and "Soil Coffee" have emerged in Guiyang. Unlike bulk commercial coffee, specialty coffee has high standards for the entire process of coffee bean cultivation, processing, roasting, and brewing. Before 2012, the coffee consumption market in China was dominated by instant and Starbucks style commercial coffee, and the concept of specialty coffee had not yet become popular. Guiyang introduced the concept of "boutique coffee" in 2005, which can be considered as being at the forefront of the trend.
It is precisely these first batch of boutique coffee shops that have nurtured many young people who aspire to enter the coffee industry. In the 2025 World Coffee Brewing Competition (WBrC), Guiyang contestant Peng Jinyang won the championship, bringing the attention of China and even the world's coffee industry and coffee enthusiasts back to Guiyang.
Peng Jinyang's championship was due to his almost "nitpicking" professional spirit towards coffee, as he believed that attention to detail was the "lifeline" of coffee creation. In the competition, Peng Jinyang systematically demonstrated the impact of temperature changes in the spout and core of a coffee pot on its flavor, with "the temperature of coffee" as the core theme. The judges believe that its extreme control over details demonstrates a high degree of integration between science and art, and this innovative research directly contributed to its championship.
Many overseas netizens have been discussing the phenomenon of "not producing a single coffee bean but giving birth to a world champion" in Guiyang, believing that the victories of multiple Guiyang baristas prove that "the highland of coffee culture can exist outside of traditional production areas", and praising Chinese baristas for "reshaping industry rules with technology".
In June 2025, Kudi Coffee signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with the Rwandan agricultural department in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. According to the memorandum, Kudi Coffee will invest in the construction of the "Central Rwanda International Coffee Industry Development Demonstration Park" in Rwanda. Peng Jinyang's championship coincides with the accelerated globalization of Chinese coffee brands. Overseas experts believe that the frequent occurrence of coffee champions in China in recent years has provided cultural support for the international discourse power of China's coffee supply chain, which will promote more international production areas to deepen cooperation with China.
Creative coffee awakens urban vitality
In recent years, relying on high-quality ecological resources, Guizhou has been committed to building a "world-class tourist destination". Now, the keyword for traveling to Guizhou has added another one: coffee.
Passing through the "internet famous street" selling hot and spicy snacks, walking into the old residential buildings behind the street, the warm lights of a coffee shop fill the ground. This is one of the representatives of Guiyang community coffee shops, "Heishi Coffee".
Lei Ming, the manager of "Black Stone Coffee", taught in Xi'an after graduating from university. He fell in love with coffee after drinking "Golden Mantine" in the first batch of boutique coffee shops in Guiyang during his studies. In 2014, he resigned and returned to his hometown Guiyang to take over the "Black Stone Coffee" coffee shop. In 2017, the store faced a crisis of declining performance. Faced with the choice of closing the store to cut losses or deepening professional cultivation, Lei Ming chose to borrow money to renovate the store and actively participated in coffee professional training, focusing on improving coffee quality.
His determination to burn his bridges brought his coffee shop back to life in 2018. After reopening, the store will have half new and half old customers, with young people becoming the main consumers. Since 2020, Lei Ming has been participating in professional competitions and will be officiating coffee events starting from 2023. From 2025 to present, the daily average number of visitors to the "Blackstone Coffee" store is about 134, and the daily cup volume exceeds 300 during peak season.
Liu Kaisheng, the manager of Crossover Coffee, has a similar entrepreneurial experience as Lei Ming. He was born in 1982 and started working with coffee in 2000. In 2009, he became a barista for the first generation boutique coffee shop "Yuedu Time" in Guiyang.
Liu Kaisheng recalled that at that time, the "Yuedu Time" coffee shop needed an average of nearly 2 tons of finished coffee beans per month, mainly purchased through the internet or suppliers, but quality control was difficult to guarantee. He began to try his own research on roasting technology for raw beans. From renting a friend's venue to engage in guerrilla warfare, to now owning a professional baking studio, Liu Kaisheng has firmly established himself in the market competition through self-study and research. Liu Kaisheng said that one of the reasons why baristas in Guiyang can make a name for themselves nationwide is that everyone is focused on their main business and pays full attention to the quality of their coffee.
Some of the coffee beans here come from my hometown, but they burst out with a different flavor in the hands of baristas in Guiyang, "said Chen Ruini, a Ivorian international student who came to visit" Cross Island Coffee "for fame." Ivory Coast's coffee production ranks third in Africa. I am glad that the coffee beans from my hometown can cross the ocean and rejuvenate here
When the spiciness of street corner noodle shops intertwines with the mellow aroma of hand brewed coffee, and when community cafes coexist and prosper with old residential buildings, Guiyang is showcasing a brand new urban vitality through a cup of coffee. According to data from the Guiyang Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, coffee consumption in Guiyang will increase by 18% year-on-year in 2025, and coffee and tea consumption in the first three quarters will increase by 52.8% year-on-year. The new tea industry has gradually become a new engine to stimulate the economic vitality of Guiyang.
Lei Ming (right), the manager of "Blackstone Coffee", introduces a creative coffee to customers (photo by Yang Wenbin)
Gathering of celebrities unlocks new business models
In recent years, boutique cafes in Guiyang have shown a flourishing trend of "a hundred flowers blooming". Baking, brewing, latte art, Italian coffee, coffee cup testing, creative coffee… baristas delve into their respective fields of expertise.
Every coffee shop seems to have exhausted all their resources to find their own differentiated development path in the 'Coffee City'. Creative coffee is becoming another external "city card" of Guiyang.
Upon hearing this, he shook his head and drank it over his head. "As Lei Ming infused his folded ear root into American coffee, he never expected that this" dark cuisine "would become a market sensation. In 2024, "Blackstone Coffee" launched the "One Bean, Three Drinks" experience package, which uses the same coffee bean to pair with three Guizhou specialty ingredients. The highest daily sales were seven or eight sets, and the folded ear root American has risen from a novelty drink to a city taste symbol.
In Madagascar, we have never experienced the combination of fruit juice, vegetables, and coffee. We only have black coffee and milk coffee. We never expected that coffee could be drunk like this. "After experiencing the innovative drinking method of Guiyang coffee, international student Mishela from Madagascar expressed her amazement.
In addition to innovating in taste, baristas' innovative expression of space and culture has also injected momentum into the development of the coffee industry. In Guanshanhu District, Guiyang City, the concrete and glass building of "Wujie Coffee" is complemented by coffee plants and minimalist design. This doesn't look like a commercial coffee shop, but rather like a creative community.
When I first arrived in Guiyang, I found many modern and quiet coffee shops here. People drink coffee here not only to refresh themselves, but also to enjoy life. Guiyang's coffee is more creative, with rich aroma and layers, representing a modern lifestyle, "said Chen Ruini.
Good coffee "puts a lot of effort into the utensils. The organizer Luo Nianyu led the team to turn every cup of coffee into an artistic medium, sparking a check-in craze on social media. On social media, customers enjoy sharing hand drawn coffee cups from coffee shops, each cup resembling a small canvas. Luo Nianyu smiled and pointed to a shelf behind the bar, which was filled with cups that she and her team had personally drawn.
Her coffee shop has won a loyal customer base and a good reputation, and is known by netizens as the "most humane coffee shop in Guiyang". Coffee shops exist in a contradiction. People both pursue stable quality and crave surprises, "said Luo Nianyu. The hand drawn on the cup is our way of balancing the two: a reliable cup of coffee with personalized small surprises.
In addition to "coffee+space" and "coffee+utensils", walking on the streets of Guiyang, cross-border fusion coffee shops such as "coffee+bookstore", "coffee+cat petting", "coffee+drama", and "coffee+wine" are also constantly emerging with new vitality, and a coffee industry with a gathering of "coffee" is taking shape.
Francisco Tobia is a double bass player of the Guiyang Symphony Orchestra and also an Italian with a passionate pursuit of coffee. During his more than ten years living in Guiyang, he witnessed the "iteration and upgrading" of Guiyang coffee. Tobia stated that based on the highest density of coffee shops in the country and with championship level professional capabilities, Guiyang has reconstructed the cultural boundaries of coffee: this is no longer an imitation of Western lifestyles, but an experiment initiated by a southwestern Chinese city to redefine the global coffee trend through localization. (Reporter Ou Dongqu and Wu Si)
Liaoning ICP Security No. 21122402000217