A Cup of Pour-Over Reveals True Skill: Jinshan’s New-Employment-Form Workers Show Off Their Craft on the Competition Stage

At a Glance (China Coffee Network): The flavor of a cup of pour-over coffee often hinges on water temperature, the coffee-to-water ratio, and the pouring rhythm—slight differences make for vastly different tastes. O…

The flavor of a cup of pour-over coffee often hinges on water temperature, the coffee-to-water ratio, and the pouring rhythm—slight differences make for vastly different tastes. On September 29, inside the Shanyang Pastoral Garden in Jinshan District, the air was rich with coffee aroma; filter cups, pour-over kettles, and digital scales were neatly arranged, timers ticked, and contestants held their breath in concentration, finely controlling the water stream to draw concentric circles on the coffee grounds. This was the scene of the 2026 Shanghai Bay Area · Hushuiyuan Shanyang Town Workers’ Pour-Over Coffee Skills Competition. Practitioners of new business forms and flexible-employment workers from the jurisdiction gathered to compete across grinding, extraction, and flavoring, using cup after cup of pour-over to showcase vocational skill and interpret the original aspiration of craftsmanship.

Guided by the Jinshan District Federation of Trade Unions and organized by the Shanyang Town Federation of Trade Unions, this event is a labor-skills competition for workers in new employment forms that Shanyang Town has made a priority. Targeting emerging fields such as coffee service and rural cultural tourism, the competition builds a professional platform for skill exchange, helping practitioners consolidate vocational skills and raise their overall job competence.

On the competition floor, contestants methodically completed the full process of grinding, extraction, and flavoring; their solid hands-on foundation fully displayed the craftsmanship spirit of workers in new business forms.

To ensure a fair and professional event, the competition adopted a dual-review model of ‘professional judges + public reviewers.’ Five industry professional judges focused on scoring hands-on technique; a ten-member public review panel evaluated from the perspective of ordinary consumers, balancing competitive professionalism with actual market needs, and also providing a reference for standardizing local coffee-culture-tourism service. The competition set up multiple progressive rounds to comprehensively assess contestants’ integrated professional ability. After the contest, professional judges collectively reviewed the on-site performance, affirming the overall competitive level while offering specific improvement suggestions on operational details.

Beyond the arena, there was no shortage of substance. The event invited local coffee-industry practitioners to share their own growth stories. Yu Chengdong from Tims Coffee recounted his journey of entering the industry from zero foundation and continuously honing his craft on the job, and shared pour-over practical techniques and career reflections; Yu Chenyi, owner of the ‘Half-Day Leisure’ tea-café in Changfengli, shared from a village-café perspective the development path of coffee industry and rural cultural tourism integrating and coexisting. The two practitioners’ stories of staying rooted in their posts, upholding craftsmanship, and daring to start businesses set a vivid example for workers in new business forms to excel in their roles.

The event site also featured supporting activities such as a coffee-skills salon and hands-on experiences, letting contestants exchange know-how and learn from each other’s strengths beyond the competition, truly achieving ‘training through competition’ and ‘improvement through competition.’

Going forward, the Shanyang Town Federation of Trade Unions will keep its focus on workers in new employment forms, concretizing and refining caring services, closely aligning with practitioners’ job-development and personal-growth needs, and routinely launching various activities such as skill exchanges, cultural-sports interactions, and heartwarming services, to bring the union closer to workers in new employment forms and continuously strengthen their sense of gain, happiness, and belonging.

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