Brief (coffeeyo.com): “We have no sugar, and no alcohol,” says Xiao Yan as he hands over a pour-over. A former advertising-film director, Chen Aiyan — known to all as “Xiao Yan” — is the founder of Cosee Coffee. An unexpected turn of events led him to start a coffee life in Yuanjing Village, Luodian Town, Baoshan District, Shanghai, where he now runs a countryside cafe that has quietly become a local landmark.
“We have no sugar, and no alcohol,” says Xiao Yan as he hands over a pour-over, his tone gentle yet firm. “I only hope that people who come here genuinely care about coffee.” He is Chen Aiyan, founder of Cosee Coffee — everyone calls him “Xiao Yan” — and an unexpected turn of events led him to begin his coffee life in Yuanjing Village, Luodian Town, Baoshan District.
Reporter’s note: Driving into Yuanjing Village in Baoshan District’s Luodian Town, the first thing that greets you is a refreshing stretch of green dotted with colorful flowers. Tucked into this tranquil village, embraced by woods and wheat fields, is a “new villager” — Chen Aiyan, founder of Cosee Coffee, known to everyone as “Xiao Yan.”
When we met Xiao Yan, he was standing behind the bar of a cafe converted from an old warehouse, calmly drawing circles with his pour-over kettle. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows he designed himself, falling on the cement-grey floor and the raw-wood tables, while the air filled with the pure aroma of coffee. Outside the window was a pastoral oil painting framed by the muntins; inside, wave after wave of regulars who had driven in specially.
A coffee life that began by accident
Before making coffee, Xiao Yan worked as a director of advertising films. A decade in advertising meant all-nighters were the norm, and coffee became his indispensable companion. Out of love for it, he went from a “ten-cups-a-day” enthusiast to diving deep into the world of coffee, studying extraction with teachers from Europe, the US, Japan and elsewhere, and later even running roasting training for large chain coffee factories.
Yet what truly brought Xiao Yan from behind the camera to center stage was an accident. For a stretch in 2022, he was “welded” to that small Luodian shop that was originally meant only to sell green beans. Unexpectedly, the little shop quietly blew up thanks to the spontaneous “good reviews” of regulars, at one point topping the taste, popularity and professional rankings for Baoshan District cafes on a major review platform.
“The first media outlet to come film was the Liberation Daily, saying there was a very professional coffee shop here,” Xiao Yan recalls. Then film crews of all kinds kept arriving. More dramatically, in a town-organized pour-over competition, Xiao Yan’s team actually beat the “five-time defending champion” a rival had hired at great cost, taking the title. With that, the fans who had come for the champion all came to check out this “dark horse” — “So it was a coffee-training place! No wonder!”
Fame came, but Xiao Yan’s original intention never changed. His business philosophy has always revolved around three words: passion, professionalism, sharing. “If you’re not professional enough and just slap together a cup of coffee, that won’t do. And sharing is the core — if the knowledge I pass on lets you go home and also brew a good cup, then the cultural atmosphere begins.”
Calmly “keeping the gate” amid the spring-outing rush
Xiao Yan’s bond with Yuanjing Village began with a long “tug-of-war.” Back then, Yuanjing Village was planning an overall cultural-tourism development, and the project side, attracted by Cosee Coffee’s built-in traffic and unusually high customer loyalty, wanted him to move in. But on first look, Xiao Yan just felt “it was too desolate.”
“When I first came here, I’d often sit alone on the steps for an entire afternoon — almost no one around, not a single young person, just an old man strolling back and forth,” Xiao Yan laughs. His thought at the time was, “Let’s plan on losing money for three years first.”
Why he became a member of Yuanjing Village, Xiao Yan says frankly, was that he was moved by the sincerity of the village Party secretary. To get Xiao Yan to become Yuanjing Village’s first merchant, the secretary came to him no fewer than seven times — from rent reductions to future plans — and Xiao Yan never relented. What truly won him over was a rainy night. “That day our old shop in Luodian ancient town was about to close, but it was still full of regulars drinking and talking coffee. The secretary saw the scene and decided: ‘The people who come to you will follow you.'” That judgment and sincerity made Xiao Yan decide to first move his training, salons and other activities over, using the place as a “base.”
Cosee’s Yuanjing Village branch opened in March 2025 to a full house, with village cadres spontaneously helping with the register, wiping tables and sweeping the floor. “After the busy day, the secretary ran over and asked if I was confident. I said, with this every day, of course I’m confident!” Xiao Yan recalls with a smile, then turned around to comfort the secretary — outdoor businesses have peak and off seasons, no need to worry. “If no one comes, that’s fine too; I’ll run training and events.”
This year, the arrival of Shanghai’s rural spring-outing season brought Yuanjing Village thoroughly to life. Rapeseed-flower fields, go-karts, little trains — all kinds of attractions drew large numbers of family visitors, and the shop was often packed. Yet amid this rush, Xiao Yan kept his cool and his edge. In his view, the meaning of rural revitalization is not entirely about how much money merchants make in the short term, but about restoring the village’s overall supporting facilities to a complete state, letting young people live and work here at a relatively low cost, and providing the city with a resilient “buffer zone.”
Using his own shop as an example, Xiao Yan pointed out the “shortcomings” exposed after the surge in foot traffic: “The core problem is parking. A regular calls to ask if there’s a space, I say no, and he doesn’t come.” Beyond that, insufficient public restrooms, missing directional signage, and a lack of public rest areas where people can sit without spending — these “small things,” in Xiao Yan’s eyes, are precisely what keep people around.
From “sitting alone in a daze” to being surrounded by regulars and “not free,” Xiao Yan is more like a “gatekeeper” in Yuanjing Village. He stubbornly filters for guests who are truly “related” to coffee. To that end, he won’t add tea drinks to the menu, won’t sell ice cream to please children, and certainly won’t serve alcohol at night to boost revenue. “A cafe doing alcohol from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. is really a kind of helplessness. But when the smell of alcohol mixes with the smell of coffee, it ruins the professionalism.” “If this place becomes a noisy party hall, then this quiet, leisurely space is ruined.”
Growing together with the village over a cup of “original-flavor” coffee
This near-obsessive persistence stems from Xiao Yan’s reverence for coffee professionalism. He did the math: an Americano sold at 8 yuan can only be profitable by using extremely cheap “recycled beans”; yet the beans in his shop alone can cost as much as 8 yuan per cup. “We pick our beans one in a hundred, even one in a thousand. Good coffee has ‘looks’ — it makes you want to smile the moment you take a sip.” Pointing out the window, he said, “If because our coffee is good, people are still willing to keep coming, that’s what truly makes me happy.”
Having taken root in Yuanjing Village for over a year, what moved Xiao Yan most was the working style of the local cadres. He remembers clearly that even on weekends, they would come to the shop to spend, but sit down and still talk about work — the place became their “second workstation.” During holiday peaks, village cadres would also direct traffic outside, or help wash cups and run the register at the bar.
“They don’t act like officials, more like colleagues working alongside us. We merchants really are pushed forward by their enthusiasm,” Xiao Yan sighed.
From the busy spring-tourism season to day-to-day operations, Xiao Yan has invested no small amount in renovations here — a real fireplace shipped from Europe, a hand-built stone wall costing tens of thousands of yuan, four expensive grinders — none of it to make a “quick-buck” village cafe, but to truly take root. “I originally planned to lose money for three years; now, after just over a year, we’re already profitable, better than expected,” Xiao Yan says calmly, looking out at the woods beyond the window. “What I find more meaningful is that this has to be sustainable. What we need to strive for now is to do our own quality well, so this base becomes good flavor that more coffee lovers can ‘see.'”
Leaving Cosee Coffee, a cool evening breeze brushed across the fields. The cafe’s lights came on, warm and steady. In the symphony of rural revitalization that is the “spring-outing season,” Xiao Yan and his Cosee Coffee strike a long note about professionalism, perseverance and love. It is not the most crescendoing, but perhaps the most lingering — drawing those who truly know how to appreciate it to travel across mountains and seas to come. That, perhaps, is the most precious gift a “new villager” brings to the local countryside.
Editor: Zhang Boyu
Source: Oriental Rural Journal / Shanghai Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Affairs
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