In May, at the main venue of the opening ceremony of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, Wujin Coffee was still a "guest" from Yunnan; In August, at the closing event market, it had a new identity: Guangzhou New Enterprise. It is this century long coffee event that has made this Yunnan coffee brand firmly establish its national marketing center in Guangzhou – from here, to the whole country.
From the opening of the May Day main venue event to the rotation of various districts throughout the city, a coffee craze spanning three months swept across Guangzhou. On August 9th, the closing ceremony of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season came to a successful conclusion, marking the official conclusion of this city wide coffee event.
The grand event has come to an end, and the lingering fragrance continues to empower the development of Guangzhou with its accumulated consumption vitality, industrial potential, and confidence in opening up to the outside world.
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August 9th is the closing day of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, and the atmosphere at the closing event was lively.
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At the closing event of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, baristas made coffee for customers on site.
Consumer Tide: The Real Heat of Cities in Fireworks Consumption
On the afternoon of August 9th, in Yuehui City, Liwan, the "Flower City Coffee Fragrance" pop-up market was bustling with people. The booth of local coffee brand Lilbee is crowded with people, and many "coffee friends" come to the store sign "Dirty Salted Pomelo" The limited edition creative specialty coffee "Aurora" brought by another local brand Anna ou is as fresh as tea and particularly popular among women; The coffee beans of "Huadiji", a national coffee brand under Guangzhou Culture Group, attract citizens to purchase eagerly.
This hot scene not only appeared at the closing ceremony, but also ran through the entire Guangzhou coffee culture season. Whether it is at the main venue of the May Day opening ceremony or at various venues throughout the city, the scorching popularity is always online. The data intuitively confirms the popularity of consumption: the main venue of the May Day holiday has attracted over 130000 visitors, and the total on-site revenue has exceeded 14.6 million yuan. Behind the hustle and bustle lies the profound coffee consumption foundation in Guangzhou.
Guangzhou is a real coffee city. Strong consumer atmosphere, mature market ecology, and abundant trade vitality.
According to data from the Guangzhou Commodity Exchange, as of June this year, the trading volume of coffee beans reached 12892 tons, a year-on-year increase of over 10.36 times, achieving a leapfrog growth. According to the White Paper on the Development of Guangzhou Coffee Industry (2026), by the end of 2025, the number of coffee shops in the city will exceed 8000 and their scale will continue to expand. According to Meituan data, from May 1st to the end of June, which is the two months of the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, 376 new coffee shops were added in Guangzhou, and a continuous stream of entrepreneurs entered the market, confirming the strong attractiveness of the market. The list of "Guangzhou Coffee Agglomeration Areas" released at the closing event unlocked 15 specialty coffee consumption areas, each with its own characteristics. Citizens drink one "zone" a day and do not repeat the same for two weeks.
This grand event has set up a stage for the industry to compete on the same stage. Independent cafes fully unleash their creativity, and a group of specialty coffees that integrate local flavors have emerged. High quality products have also empowered physical store sales in reverse. For example, PAIX COFFEE launched the Five Finger Peach Pot Latte during the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, which saw a 30% increase in sales compared to the first two seasonal limited editions this year, becoming a fresh sample in the Guangzhou style specialty market. Relying on the continuously rising coffee consumption trend, the turnover growth rate of coffee shops in Guangzhou exceeded 9% in the first half of this year.
The strong demand for terminal consumption continues to guide and empower the industry chain, nourish the business development of small and large merchants, and accumulate abundant endogenous power for the coffee industry in Guangzhou, becoming the foundation for the continuous upward trend of the industry.
Attracting Phoenix to Build a Nest: A Cup of Coffee Inviting Enterprises to Rooted in Yangcheng
The three-month coffee consumption boom is a shining business card that Guangzhou has presented to the national and global coffee industry. The scorching heat of the market has allowed out of town enterprises to truly see the potential of Guangzhou's coffee industry. Many participating brands have transformed from "passing customers" to market entities rooted in Guangzhou, landing and deeply cultivating Guangzhou.
In the first half of the day, we sold out all the ingredients for five days. "Recalling his experience at the main venue of the May Day holiday, Chen Guohong, the general manager of Wujin Coffee, still left a deep impression. During the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, this coffee brand from Yunnan participated in three events and sold 600 pounds of coffee beans. The impressive data has convinced it to firmly establish its national marketing center in Guangzhou.
The gratifying trend of industrial landing has blossomed in many parts of the city. Star Coffee Food (Kunshan) Co., Ltd.'s 5-day sales far exceeded expectations at the main venue of the exhibition, which confirmed the decision of Star Coffee to settle in Guangzhou. It designated Guangzhou as the first station of national development, settled in the "Guangzhou Gift" store of IFC West Tower in the Pearl River New Town, and innovated the consumption mode of "coffee bean storage and brewing". Yunnan Nongken Coffee Co., Ltd. has also taken the initiative to connect with the Guangzhou market and plans to come for inspection, seeking diversified layouts such as production line landing and deep industrial cooperation.
Local enterprises also take advantage of the grand event to accelerate their expansion. The founder of Tili Coffee, Liu Qiao, truly felt the huge potential of the Guangzhou coffee market from the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season. The foot traffic has completely exceeded expectations, and the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season has become an important opportunity for us to promote our next development. Now, Tili Coffee is accelerating the pace of buying land and building factories, and plans to expand its store scale from 200 to around 260 in the second half of the year; At the same time, it is planned to create a coffee themed "urban living room" in Shamian, empowering the construction of urban brands with coffee culture. In just three months, the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season has successfully signed and implemented a number of coffee industry cooperation projects.
All upstream and downstream enterprises in the entire industry chain have pressed the "acceleration button" for development. Junde Commercial Group relies on the bonded warehousing policy of Nansha Free Trade Zone to continuously expand its warehousing capacity; Huide Center is preparing to build the South China International Coffee Trading Innovation Center, planning three major production area pavilions in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and simultaneously creating a professional competition and industry exchange platform; Jinuo signed a nearly 1 million yuan intelligent warehousing project in July, which will increase the warehousing efficiency from 60% to 70% to 80%. The next step is to continue to increase investment in automated production lines and AI algorithm management systems; Kuku Robotics continues to expand its direct sales locations; Awesome Coffee plans to upgrade its production capacity. It plans to introduce an imported roasting equipment that can bake 240 kg of raw beans in a single time this year to build a coffee roasting factory with leading production capacity in South China.
Policy empowerment: institutional fertile ground supports the formation of the entire chain industry
The market is hot and companies are competing to settle down.
Why are coffee professionals willing to invest in Guangzhou? Through the window of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, it can be seen that the government's precise implementation of policies and empowerment, efforts to cultivate a complete industrial ecosystem, and practical relief for market entities are the key confidence for the industry to achieve stability and long-term success.
I have been in the business for 20 years, and it is rare for Guangzhou to support the industrial environment from top to bottom and work together. The government atmosphere is good, the industrial atmosphere is good, and Guangzhou is our treasure land, "said Li Tong, CEO of Kuku, expressing the common voice of many practitioners.
Taking advantage of the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Festival, Guangzhou has introduced the "Several Measures to Promote the High Quality Development of the Coffee Industry in Guangzhou" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"). The Measures cover the entire coffee industry chain, promoting the acceleration of the industry from consumption driven to industry driven, and laying a solid institutional foundation for the high-quality development of the coffee industry.
Regarding the financial empowerment process, the Measures propose to guide financial institutions to optimize credit, insurance and other products and services for coffee cultivation, production, circulation, stores, cultural tourism consumption and other links. At the closing ceremony, Agricultural Bank of China Guangzhou Branch granted a total of nearly 400 million yuan in credit to key enterprises in the coffee industry chain, reducing the financing threshold for small and medium-sized coffee enterprises with customized financial products and providing a package of financial support.
Regarding trade circulation, the Measures specify the optimization of the special customs clearance mechanism for the import of coffee beans, improve supporting services such as constant temperature and humidity warehousing, sample testing, and distribution at Nansha Port, Huangpu Port, and Baiyun Airport ports, and build a digital coffee trading platform that integrates bonded transactions, warehousing supervision, and cross-border payment settlement; Introduce coffee bonded processing, packaging and assembly projects, and build a collaborative development model of "Guangzhou hub+surrounding manufacturing" in the Greater Bay Area. Sun Haitao, Secretary General of the Guangzhou Coffee Industry Association, believes that the simplification of customs clearance procedures is a direct "burden reduction" for traders, shortening the transaction cycle and reducing the cost of capital occupation.
The Measures clearly support coffee product and coffee equipment production enterprises to carry out technological transformation around expanding production capacity, improving efficiency, and reducing energy consumption. Tian Zhifeng, Deputy General Manager of Guangzhou Jinuo Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd., said that measures have made enterprises more willing to invest funds in equipment renovation and industrial upgrading; Li Tong said that the measures are a "timely rain" for Kuku, which is currently in a critical period of capacity ramp up and automation upgrade. They not only directly reduce expansion costs, but also greatly enhance enterprise investment confidence.
Industry is moving upwards, with talent as the foundation. Relying on the coffee culture season platform and special support policies, Guangzhou regularly carries out coffee skills training and industry exchange activities. Li Tao, founder of Klima Training Center, said, "The consumer market in Guangzhou is huge, and there is a prominent shortage of professional baking, tasting, and operation talents. Industry exchange and talent cultivation policies continue to inject fresh blood into the track
Sun Haitao believes that the coffee industry in Guangzhou has initially established a complete chain of "trade intelligent manufacturing processing store consumption cultural dissemination". "Through policy guidance and resource allocation, the overall synergy effect of the coffee industry in Guangzhou will become stronger, and all chain enterprises can release greater energy, ultimately promoting the entire industry to move towards a higher level
The consumer market provides the soil, market entities strive to be the first, and the policy system provides support. Consumption, enterprises, and policies support each other and jointly nourish the thriving growth of Guangzhou's coffee industry.
Connecting the World: Coffee is Guangzhou's calling card to the world
The vigorous consumption vitality, constantly gathering industrial resources, and increasingly perfect policy ecology all point to a deeper topic in the city: what greater value can coffee bring to Guangzhou? For Guangzhou, which is building an international consumption center city, coffee is a universal language of the world. A small cup of coffee builds a link for external communication and exchanges, creating countless new opportunities for the city.
Looking back at the main venue of the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season, 233 high-quality coffee brands and world champion managers from 43 cities and regions in 13 countries around the world gathered in Guangzhou. Many companies prioritize Guangzhou for new product launches and flavor debuts, and numerous international exhibiting brands have stated that Guangzhou has become an important indicator for them to observe the Chinese coffee market. The rush of international brands confirms Guangzhou's increasing attractiveness in the global coffee landscape.
Coffee also adds a touch of warmth to business dealings. In May, it was the Canton Fair, and many merchants made a special trip to the main venue of the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season to check-in. They traveled in both directions for business and cultural exchanges. A steaming cup of coffee creates more potential business opportunities for collaboration.
Guangzhou coffee not only has foreign flavors, but also hides local whimsical ideas. Litchi, five fingered peach, tangerine peel, and other highly Lingnan themed delicacies are cleverly integrated into the coffee's special flavor. Guests from home and abroad who come from afar not only have a drink, but also a way to understand Guangzhou. Through a cup of coffee, foreign guests can experience the vibrant creativity and unique urban atmosphere of Guangzhou, and thus develop a longing for this city.
Coffee is also a showcase to the world, exporting Guangzhou flavor and Guangzhou manufacturing to the outside world.
After its debut at the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Festival, Kuku's intelligent coffee equipment has attracted many customers; Jinuo intelligent coffee machines are exported to more than 100 countries and regions around the world. What's even more interesting is that some overseas friends, after trying Guangzhou's specialty coffee, specifically went to Jinda Coffee Beverage City to learn specialty techniques. In the past, we introduced overseas coffee concepts, but now foreign friends come to Guangzhou to learn coffee creativity. At the closing event, the professional competitive competition "Lujiazui Coffee Master Flower Pulling Skills Competition" was held on the same stage as the Yunnan Pu'er Coffee Special Session, further establishing the Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season's position in the coffee industry.
A cup of coffee activates urban consumption and strengthens physical industries internally; Act as a cultural ambassador to the outside world, telling the story of Guangzhou and connecting global markets.
After three months of coffee fragrance circulation, the 2026 Guangzhou Coffee Culture Season comes to an end, but the urban story of "Flower City Coffee Fragrance" continues. It activates the consumer market, attracts industrial resources to land, improves the entire chain industry system, and uses coffee as the universal language of the world to open up a two-way channel for cultivating industries internally and connecting the world externally.
Looking ahead to the future, the lingering fragrance of Huacheng coffee will continue to empower the construction of Guangzhou as an international consumption center city, allowing the vitality and creativity of Yangcheng to move towards a broader world with a cup of coffee.
Liaoning ICP Security No. 21122402000217