Brief (coffeeyo.com): “A café in the village? Who would come?” That was a father’s reaction to his son’s plan. Two years on, the improbably named “Lipu Coffee” in Zhengdian Village, Jinhua, is a weekend draw — and his father now runs the bar on weekdays.
Chao News client
At the weekend, Zhengdian Village in Lipu Town, Jindong District, is a little livelier than usual. Follow the smell of coffee through the lanes and you find a small shop with a sign reading “Lipu Coffee” — literally, “Outrageous Coffee”.
The shop is run by two young partners. Guo Cunjun, a villager born in the 1990s, is one of them. He stands behind the counter working the espresso machine with practised ease; when a customer comes in he looks up and smiles as if greeting an old friend.
After leaving the army, Guo Cunjun found a steady job in Jinhua’s city proper. In his spare time he took up photography and coffee.
“I probably fell for coffee about ten years ago,” he says. He happened on a book about coffee and had been hooked ever since.
Later, travelling to other cities, he noticed that village cafés were spaces well suited to young people, and the idea of returning home to open one took shape. “Draw people out to the countryside for a look around, to enjoy a slower pace of rural life.”
The moment he said it out loud, though, his father Guo Yonggao thought it rather “outrageous”: “A café in the village? Will anyone actually spend money there? Can it last?” Seeing how determined his son was, he eventually gave in: “All right, if it’s what you want to do, go and do it.”
With his family’s support, Guo Cunjun felt much more settled. He and his partner planned for a long time. “We wanted to start at the end of 2024, but the Spring Festival was coming and too many things were hard to arrange. It wasn’t until 2025 that everything was finally settled.”
In April 2025, “Lipu Coffee” opened its doors.
On holidays and weekends Guo Cunjun and his partner come back to the village to make coffee. On weekdays they work in the city, and Guo Yonggao becomes the shop’s mainstay.
Guo Cunjun wrote the recipes out on paper, and his father works through the steps slowly. “Anything harder than that, I can’t manage,” Guo Yonggao says with a laugh. “My son lays out all the ingredients for me. My eyesight isn’t what it was, so finding things takes me a while. Luckily I can handle the simple ones — a latte, an iced americano.”
After a rush of customers, Guo Cunjun wipes down the counter and talks about the future of “Lipu Coffee”. He does not only want to sell coffee; he wants it to become a space where young people gather, relax and talk. And getting them to come and stay takes more than a few basic coffees. Going forward, he wants to try a more varied range of coffee products.
His father is thinking further ahead. He hopes more capable young people will come to Zhengdian Village and open photography studios, creative shops, restaurants and guesthouses. “We have a lot of empty houses in the village; it’s a shame to leave them idle. If young people move in and new shops open, more visitors will come naturally.”
By Yang Xiao (text) and Fang Li (photos and video), Jincaiyun client.
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