A while ago, did any of you watch Love in the Age of Innocence? It was honestly the first time a period drama pulled me into that kind of “flow state” of pure enjoyment—I was completely hooked, haha. But as an ISTJ, shipping characters and catching interesting narrative details don’t get in each other’s way. And as a coffee lover, the moment I spot anything even remotely related to coffee, my “inspiration antenna” instantly shoots up.
The story is set around 1975. Although the show takes place in a fictional city called “Jiangcheng,” there’s a telling clue: Fang Muyang mentions dishes like pork cutlets, ice cream, and borscht from the “Deda Western Restaurant.” That restaurant clearly points to the real-life Deda Western Restaurant (today located at 473 West Nanjing Road in Shanghai), which essentially confirms the setting. In one scene, Fang Muyang wants a cup of coffee, and Fei Ni goes out to buy it for him. That small moment caught my attention, and it made me curious enough to dig into the historical context—how exactly did people drink coffee back then?
In that era of material scarcity, coffee—seen as a “capitalist” beverage—was never completely banned. Instead, it existed in a kind of gray zone within daily life. It was typically treated as a “special supply” item, reserved for foreign-related hotels, Friendship Stores, and seamen’s clubs, mainly serving foreign guests, returned overseas Chinese, or intellectual elites. That said, coffee could still occasionally be found in higher-end state-run shops or select supply-and-marketing cooperatives in major cities. While rare for the average person, it wasn’t entirely out of reach.
At the time, the most famous domestic brand was “Shanghai Brand” coffee produced by the Shanghai Coffee Factory. It came in tins of roasted coffee and was widely remembered as a luxury item—something you could only get with foreign exchange coupons or special connections.
The story of the Shanghai Coffee Factory actually goes back to 1935, when a 22-year-old from Dinghai, Zhejiang named Zhang Baocun founded the “Desheng Coffee Company” in Shanghai. Zhang had studied at St. Francis Xavier’s College in Shanghai and later worked at a foreign firm, where he developed a strong interest in coffee roasting. He named his brand “C.P.C.,” which may sound Western but was actually derived from the Wade-Giles romanization of his name (Chang P.C.). His business imported green coffee beans, roasted, blended, and ground them in-house, and even brewed and sold coffee on-site. Thanks to its excellent quality, C.P.C. quickly became a well-known name in Shanghai, and Zhang himself earned the nickname “King of Coffee.”
In 1956, Desheng Coffee underwent public-private partnership reform, and by March 1959, it was officially renamed the “Local State-Owned Shanghai Coffee Factory,” adopting the “Shanghai Brand” trademark. From the 1960s through the early 1980s, it was the only enterprise in China named specifically for coffee—and the country’s sole coffee-processing factory before the Reform and Opening-Up era. For over three decades, every cup of coffee served in Shanghai—whether in cafés or hotels—came from this factory. In fact, the same was true across the entire country’s coffee shops and high-end hotels.
At the time, a tin of Shanghai Brand coffee cost 3.5 yuan. When the average monthly salary was only a few dozen yuan, that price firmly placed it in the luxury category. Yet despite the cost, Shanghai households that aspired to a more “Westernized” lifestyle almost always kept a tin at home—especially as a must-have for weddings. Even after the coffee was gone, the empty tin would often be displayed prominently in a glass cabinet, becoming a unique symbol of status and taste in that era.
During the difficult years of the 1960s, when resources were scarce and rationing was common, coffee at times required coupons. Still, people in Shanghai never lost their taste for it. In response, the Shanghai Coffee Factory came up with a creative substitute known as “coffee tea.” It was made from lower-grade coffee bean remnants, ground into a very fine powder. The process involved layering sugar, then coffee powder, then powdered sugar into molds, compressing and drying the mixture before cutting it into small blocks and packaging them in paper boxes. To drink it, you simply dropped a piece into hot water—much like instant coffee.
Of course, the taste couldn’t compare to real coffee. It was often gritty, with a relatively weak aroma. But in that time, it was better than nothing—a small comfort in an otherwise constrained life.
In the show, when Fei Ni buys coffee, the shop uses a moka pot to brew it—another detail worth noting. Seeing a moka pot in 1975 is actually a bit anachronistic, as this Italian brewing tool didn’t become widely known or used in China until after the 2000s. Back then, very few households owned one. More commonly, people in Shanghai would wrap coffee grounds in cloth, place them into an aluminum pot (known locally as a “gangzhong huzi”), and boil it over a coal stove—the same one used for cooking. The coffee would simmer slowly over low heat, gradually releasing its aroma. For those who were a bit more particular, they might filter it again through paper afterward for a smoother, richer taste.
Outside of Shanghai, cities like Harbin and Tianjin—both with strong legacies of foreign communities—also maintained a visible coffee culture. In Harbin, for example, places like the Dongfanghong Supply and Marketing Cooperative reflected this tradition, complete with old counters, veteran sales clerks, and the city’s distinctive Russian-influenced coffee customs (such as drinking from cups alongside bread like rye loaves).
Looking back, regardless of how times change, people’s love for life never really fades. Brewing a pot of coffee with a moka pot and pairing it with a piece of Western pastry wasn’t just about taste—it was a quiet act of preserving a way of life. What the moka pot produced wasn’t just coffee, but something more enduring: a stubborn, elegant fragment of a “pure and innocent age,” compressed into the folds of time.