In Zhenyuan, a Cup of Coffee and a Waiting Train

At a Glance (China Coffee Network): At 5:30 p.m. on June 21, a green-skinned train on the Hunan-Guizhou Railway passed Zhenyuan on schedule. As the whistle sounded, chairs scraped in the café; tourists stepped onto the terrace and raised their phones—the train, the coffee cup and the sunset captured in one frame.

At 5:30 p.m. on June 21, a green-skinned train on the Hunan-Guizhou Railway passed Zhenyuan on schedule. As the whistle sounded, chairs scraped in the café; tourists stepped onto the terrace and raised their phones—the train, the coffee cup and the sunset captured in one frame.

“Over these three days of the Dragon Boat Festival, we were busy from morning to night; I barely sat down at all,” said Yang Yang, a server at the Railway Café, never pausing as she spoke and unscrewed the portafilter. “Today’s revenue is about 3,000 yuan.”

The café sits on the edge of Zhenyuan County town in southeast Guizhou’s Qiandongnan prefecture, converted from a two-story bungalow. Covering 120 square meters, the first floor is an indoor lounge and the second a rooftop open-air area; from any corner, you can look up and see trains running along the Hunan-Guizhou Railway line.

“We started a trial operation on May 8; the first month’s revenue was around 30,000 yuan, and these Dragon Boat Festival days have been even hotter, with daily income between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan,” said Yang Hui, the person in charge of the Railway Café.

“Rails everywhere, trains to wait for at any moment”—this scene design, turning a transport line into a scenic line, has become a check-in landmark that frequently goes viral on social platforms.

“Today is already my third consecutive day at this café; I order a coffee and just relax,” said Zhang Jing, a tourist from Hunan. Guests like Zhang who “come back again and again” are not few. Server Yang Yang said that during the Dragon Boat Festival several tables were on their “second or third visit.”

In recent years, Zhenyuan County has kept cultivating new business forms, creating new scenes and unlocking new vitality. More than 40 boutique homestays across the county, through deep integration of “intangible-heritage experience plus local culture,” have raised the average visitor stay from 1.5 days to 2.8 days. The Dragon Boat Festival dragon-boat race and the “Village Boat” open competition, the immersive performance “Moonlit Wushui River,” and intangible-heritage experience workshops have turned festivals, events and culture into participatory, takeable-home, shareable experience products.

Reporter: Jiang Hongqi, Guizhou Daily / Tianyan News. Editors: Li Li, Luo Hangnian. Reviewer: An Tong.