Wow! Taishan locals have been drinking coffee for over a century!

For Taishan, coffee was never an imported fashion trend, but a homesick memory etched into the blood. Taishan people’s bond with coffee goes back over a hundred years. Today we look into Taishan’s coffee past together.

In the Taishan Overseas Chinese Museum, there is a 1906 Hills Bros. tin coffee can, its surface rusty. It was the “foreign gadget” that Dohu overseas Chinese brought back from the United States back then. Now it lies quietly in the display case, silently telling a story of a wanderer’s return home.

A 1906 Hills Bros. tin coffee can in the Taishan Overseas Chinese Museum

Over a hundred years ago, large numbers of Taishan people bid farewell to their homeland and went far to the Americas and Nanyang to make a living. On foreign soil, coffee was their comfort and reward after labor.

Overseas Chinese brought coffee back from abroad

Whenever the wanderers returned home, besides clothes and money in their “Gold Mountain trunks,” they would always pack coffee powder and beans, together with hand-crank grinders and coffee pots, carrying them across the ocean back to Taishan, becoming the most precious souvenirs.

Coffee powder and beans became prized souvenirs

With remittance inflows and the accessibility of the Xinning Railway, coffee quickly became a hit in the hometown of overseas Chinese. In the qiaowu houses and beneath the arcades, its rich aroma could be smelled everywhere. Even empty coffee cans were reluctant to be thrown away — turned into storage jars and coin boxes, accompanying their owners through long nights in the quiet years, and becoming a witness of Chinese and Western lifestyles meeting and blending in the hometown.

Coffee aroma spread through the qiaowu houses and arcades

From a can of coffee crossing the ocean, to the city now full of aroma; from a souvenir of returning overseas Chinese, to a daily cup for people today — coffee’s bitter-sweet aftertaste is just like the life taste of Taishan overseas Chinese.

A cup of Taishan coffee today

Come to Taishan for a cup of coffee, savor the rich history of the hometown of overseas Chinese, and recharge your days ahead. ☕

Source: Taishan Rongmei (Taishan Media Convergence)

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