JD.com Enters the Coffee and Tea-Drink Market as Its 24-Hour Smart Unmanned Coffee Store Opens in Beijing

Brief (coffeeyo.com): JD.com’s freshly-made beverage brand 7FRESH Coffee has opened its first 24-hour smart unmanned coffee store at Galaxy SOHO in Beijing, where robots handle the entire brew-to-cup process, betting on automation to cut costs and serve night-shift and cross-time-zone customers.

JD 7FRESH Coffee 24-hour unmanned smart store at Galaxy SOHO, Beijing

On August 14, the reporter learned that the first 24-hour smart unmanned coffee store under JD.com’s freshly-made beverage brand 7FRESH Coffee will officially open, located at Galaxy SOHO in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Every coffee drink at the store — from grinding and extraction to production and cup output — is executed entirely by robots, operating around the clock.

Stepping into the 7FRESH Coffee Galaxy SOHO store, one is immediately met with a sense of intelligence and technology. This is an “unmanned coffee store” offering coffee, tea drinks and other beverages made by robots, with a fully automated flow from order-taking and ingredient prep to production. After consumers place orders through the self-service ordering system, the store’s smart large screen displays the entire process of each cup — from cup placement and ice dropping to on-site brewing and placement into the pickup cabinet. The store is also equipped with embodied intelligent robots that place the coffee into the pickup cabinets, achieving a complete closed loop of “fully automated production + embodied robot service.”

According to a relevant person in charge, on top of standardized output, 7FRESH Coffee also offers personalized DIY customization. Before ordering, customers can freely adjust sweetness, coffee strength and juice concentration, with fine-tuning from 1% to 100%. After DIY, consumers can also name their coffee and generate a custom card to share, combining tech appeal with social features. Going forward, 7FRESH Coffee will also implement AI personalized recommendations based on taste preferences, precisely advising the day’s coffee intake in light of personal health, to provide more scientific and healthy beverages.

It is understood that few traditional coffee stores currently operate 24 hours, but as life’s pace accelerates, demand for 24-hour service from late-night overtime workers and those working across time zones is growing steadily. Beyond its fully automated unmanned feature, the store’s biggest highlight is 24-hour operation, effectively meeting consumers’ need to drink whenever they want, from morning to night.

Amid the wave of AI and robotics development, AI’s entry into the physical world must ultimately land in everyday life that everyone can perceive. JD’s entry into the coffee and tea-drink market reflects its recognition of the opportunities under the new production model — empowering the coffee and tea business with AI to meet users’ daily-life needs.

Currently, the freshly-made coffee and tea-drink market commonly faces problems such as high staff turnover, frequent new-employee training and unstable manual output; if operating hours are extended, store operating costs become an immediate difficulty. Through “fully automated smart production + embodied robot service,” a single drink can be completed within 30 seconds — achieving unified quality control and higher efficiency via AI, while freeing employees from low-value repetitive labor, drastically cutting costs while maximizing human creative potential.

Industry insiders say the first 24-hour smart unmanned coffee store by 7FRESH Coffee also injects new vitality into the city’s night economy and 24-hour convenience services, meeting consumption demand and creating richer consumption scenarios. It provides a reference-worthy intelligent solution for 24-hour retail and food-service operation, and injects new momentum into urban development.

Robotic coffee-making process at 7FRESH Coffee

Smart self-service ordering and pickup at 7FRESH Coffee

Source: Cover News, reporter Fu Wenchao.

Reprint Note & Disclaimer

This article is reprinted from Chinese media for information and cultural exchange. The views expressed are those of the original author and do not necessarily reflect the position of coffeeyo.com.
All trademarks, brand names and logos mentioned belong to their respective owners.
For cooperation, reprint or correction requests, please contact coffeeyo.com.

Reprint Notice & Disclaimer

This article has been edited and compiled by China Coffee Network. The information and images therein come from public sources and the copyright belongs to the original author. This reprint is intended solely for information sharing within the coffee industry and does not represent the views of this website; all data and opinions are subject to the original article. Our thanks to the original author for creating and sharing it.
For matters concerning content licensing, attribution, copyright or otherwise, please contact us promptly and we will verify and cooperate in handling them as soon as possible. We also welcome coffee origins, brands and industry media to exchange ideas and contribute articles.
Contact China Coffee Network: Tel 400-0000-641 (+86-18288016826) | Email 405854472@qq.com | Address: Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province / Tieling, Liaoning Province