On August 9th, the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season came to an end. Over the course of a hundred days, 13 countries, 43 cities and regions, and more than 230 brands participated… A set of data not only overflowed with the fragrance of coffee, but also reflected the vitality of a city.
Although coffee is an imported product, it has already become "Lao Guang" here. Chenpi, litchi, five fingered peaches and other Lingnan flavors have been transferred into coffee. The arcade old streets, waterfront spaces, and community streets have become "coffee sighing" scenes. Coffee has also collided with Cantonese music, intangible cultural heritage, movies, Loong Boat and other cultural elements… Coffee is still the cup of coffee, but it has more fresh Guangzhou flavor.
A festival is also a window into the city. Brands, managers, and consumers from different countries and cities gather in Guangzhou for coffee, experiencing the city's open mindedness, commercial vitality, and warmth of life while tasting its flavor and exchanging culture. The Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season transforms the grand urban image into a tangible, touchable, and participatory lifestyle experience, allowing people to understand Guangzhou's traditional yet modern, pragmatic yet fashionable urban temperament through a cup of coffee. Such urban dissemination is more smoky and easier to penetrate people's hearts.
A cup of coffee not only connects the taste buds. The main venue links more than 170 merchants in the Tianhe Road commercial district, with a single ticket connecting diverse consumption such as dining, shopping, accommodation, and travel; Each district is adapting to local conditions and exploring new formats such as "coffee+cultural tourism", "coffee+music", "coffee+sports events", etc. Extending from a cup of beverage to a lifestyle, from an exhibition driving a commercial district, it shows that consumer growth points can also be deeply explored from daily life. By understanding consumers' new demands for cultural experiences, social spaces, and emotional values, we can transform activity "traffic" into urban "retention" and market "increment".
An event also gathers momentum for industrial development. The coffee culture season brings together brands, production areas, industry associations, financial institutions, and professional talents, providing a platform for local enterprises to showcase their products and connect with resources, as well as creating opportunities for domestic and foreign brands to understand and layout Guangzhou. From this, it can be seen that the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season is not only a consumer event, but also a way to gather momentum and promote production through exhibitions.
At present, there are over 8000 coffee shops in Guangzhou, but building a "coffee city" should not only focus on the number of shops, but also on the ecology. This closing event released ten measures for the high-quality development of the coffee industry, sending a clear signal of moving from thriving consumption to strengthening the industry, and promoting the extension of the industry chain to trade circulation, warehousing and baking, equipment manufacturing, research and development innovation, talent cultivation and other links. Only by allowing more coffee beans not only to pass through Guangzhou, but also to be processed, traded, and appreciated here, can we truly "turn coffee beans into gold" and turn the temporary coffee aroma into long-term industrial competitiveness.
From "sighing tea" to "sighing coffee", Guangzhou people have added a new flavor to their daily lives. Although the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season has come to an end, the coffee aroma integrated into the streets and daily life will continue to add fireworks and new vitality to the Flower City.
Commentator for Guangzhou Daily: Chen Wenjie
Photo/Guangzhou Daily Xinhua City Reporter: Zhuang Xiaolong
Guangzhou Daily Xinhua City Editor: Li Fenghe
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