A Shanxi-Style Signature Rural Cafe - and It's the Only One in Shanghai!

At a Glance (China Coffee Network): Sanmao Biepao, the only cafe of its kind in Shanghai, sits in Hexie Village, Qingpu, blending local produce like Qinzhou millet and persimmon into creative coffee signatures that draw holiday crowds to the countryside.

During the National Day holiday, Hexie Village in Zhaoxiang, Qingpu, welcomed large numbers of visitors. With gentle streams winding past white walls and dark tiles and idyllic countryside views all around, many city residents avoided the urban crowds and made a special trip to Hexie Water Street to find a relaxed holiday ease in the countryside. Today our reporter takes you to visit the village’s one-of-a-kind specialty coffee shop – Sanmao Biepao.

Hidden among the courtyards of a beautiful village, it is free of the noise of downtown commercial districts. In Shanghai, this rural cafe specializing in creative signature drinks built on local produce brings trendy coffee together with rustic ingredients, delivering a different kind of village taste experience. During the National Day period the store was packed, every seat taken; many visitors sat around wooden tables with friends chatting or families gathering, a cup of coffee in hand, gazing out at the fields and streams beyond the window, slowly savoring a leisurely village afternoon.

“I’d heard long ago that this ‘Sanmao Biepao’ was special, so during the National Day holiday I invited some friends to come check it out,” said Ms. Wu, a resident who drove in from the city center. She ordered a “Qin Xiaomi” (millet) latte and savored it carefully; the unique aroma of the grain intertwined with the coffee flavor, which she found refreshingly novel. Mr. Zhou’s family, visiting from Suzhou, stopped by Hexie Village after browsing the Qingpu Bailian Outlets: “We never expected to drink such creative coffee in a Shanghai village; after a tiring stroll it’s the perfect place to rest, and the riverside atmosphere is simply maxed out.”

At the scene, our reporter chatted with store manager Vanessa about the shop’s signatures, unlocking the ingenuity behind these special drinks. “We focus on creative signatures built on local produce, combining distinctive ingredients like Qinzhou yellow millet, sea buckthorn and apricots with coffee beans,” Vanessa explained, showing the reporter the seasonal new product. “We recently launched a limited-time persimmon cold brew using crisp persimmons, available only that month – if you come late you’ll miss it. Take the popular ‘Qin Xiaomi’ latte: we roast the Qinzhou yellow millet, then soak and froth it with milk, so the grain aroma really stands out.”

To perfectly fuse local produce with coffee, the choice of beans was also refined through many trials. “In the early stage we tested a great many beans and finally settled on a medium-roast Geisha from Ethiopia; it has abundant floral and fruity notes that pair well with the natural sweet-and-sour of millet, sea buckthorn and persimmon, complementing one another without masking their individual character.”

Speaking of the distinctive name “Sanmao Biepao” (Sanmao Don’t Run), Vanessa laughed as she explained its meaning: “Many people think of the writer Sanmao, or the comic ‘The Wanderings of Sanmao’; actually both readings work. We chose this name mostly because Shanghai’s young people generally move too fast. We hope guests who come to Hexie Village can slow their pace. ‘Don’t run’ doesn’t mean stopping in your tracks, but settling yourself here, and after a rest, continuing forward calmly and with feet on the ground.” As the only such store in all of Shanghai, this special creative-coffee experience can only be felt by coming to Hexie Village.

Here, drinking coffee need not follow the rigid rules of the city. Many visitors order a creative signature drink paired with a freshly fried local youdunzi (fried dough stick), the golden, crispy rustic snack meeting Western coffee – a cross-over that seems mismatched yet feels especially harmonious in a rural courtyard. At peak season the store sells up to 500 cups a day, a clear sign of how much visitors love this innovative village flavor.

A cup of coffee is but a small snapshot of Hexie Water Street. Strolling the whole street, renovated old houses brim with new life; cafes, cultural-creative shops and distinctive private venues are scattered throughout. The classical charm of a Jiangnan water town, layered with trendy and diverse new formats, gives the village a wholly new vitality. Visitors walk along the water, browse the small shops and enjoy the waterside scenery, immersively experiencing a rural micro-getaway.

The fragrance of these little village cafes is a vivid footnote to Hexie Village’s push for rural revitalization. Relying on its unique water-town resources, the locality has activated idle rural spaces and moved urban consumption scenarios into the fields and along the riverside. This lets city visitors who travel from afar find a slow life away from the noise, while the new cultural-tourism formats energize the village and truly turn “green mountains and clear waters” into a driver of development.

Check-in tip: Sanmao Biepao Cafe | No. 449, Hexie Village, Zhaoxiang Town, Qingpu District

You need not travel far to find poetry; this holiday, why not step into Hexie Water Street. With a signature coffee in hand, watch the streams flow and listen to the evening breeze brush the countryside, and feel the unique ease and beauty of Qingpu’s villages between everyday warmth and poetic calm.

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