Pu’er Coffee

 Outside a trendy café on Nanjing West Road in Shanghai, young people line up holding seasonal “Osmanthus Latte” cups for photos. In office buildings, coffee delivery lockers are restocked by riders every ten minutes, with a single locker serving over 300 cups daily. Thousands of miles away, at a county market in Yichang, Hubei, vendor Lao Wang’s drink cart prominently advertises “soy milk, black tea, iced cola,” while the word “coffee” appears in tiny print at the bottom of the menu. When middle school students ask about it, he laughs and waves them off: “That stuff tastes bitter like herbal medicine. I hear it keeps you awake all night. Better grab some black tea—three yuan, quenches thirst and calms you.” These starkly contrasting scenes paint a vivid picture of China’s coffee consumption market. According to professional estimates for 2025, between 1 billion and 1.27 billion people in China have never had coffee. Behind this number lies a complex landscape shaped by consumption...

 Since 2025, the international coffee market has continued to operate at historically high levels. In 2024, Arabica coffee futures repeatedly broke record highs, and the resulting price volatility rippled through the entire supply chain. Domestic small and medium-sized roasters faced increasing cost pressure, while several retail brands began adjusting prices in the end market. Against this backdrop, the light-asset model that relies solely on external procurement has become increasingly unsustainable. For leading Chinese coffee brands, early investments in vertically integrated supply chains have proven essential—“building factories and securing the source” has become the core defense against market fluctuations. 01. Leading Brands Double Down on Deep Supply Chain Integration Luckin Coffee began its “new coffee infrastructure” initiative in 2021 and has since completed a comprehensive network: a coffee cherry processing plant in Baoshan, Yunnan, and two major roasting bases in ...