Pu’er Coffee

 Lately, I seem to keep coming back to the topic of espresso crema separation. Just as debates are heating up over whether crema should be preserved or filtered out, I came across a crowdfunded product on Kickstarter some time ago that offers a surprisingly elegant answer: young people don’t do multiple-choice questions—we want it all. The reason this cup truly delivers on that “no need to choose” idea is its ability to offer multiple tasting experiences from a single cup. This dual-chamber espresso cup allows you to enjoy a classic espresso with crema, then—by rotating the base—separate and filter out the crema to taste an espresso without it. You can even drink it midway through the process, experiencing a uniquely balanced in-between state. Setting everything else aside, I think this cup is especially well suited for espresso tasting. On a theoretical level, we often say that crema contributes aromatic compounds, but also introduces bitterness. With this cup, you can directly c...

 Walk into a café nowadays and the menu might surprise you: “Kale Light Coffee,” “Provence Tomato Americano,” “Beetroot & Purple Cabbage Americano”—ingredients that sound more like a salad than part of a coffee drink. What started as a jokingly labeled “dark cuisine” has now gone mainstream: Guming’s kale Americano sells over 50,000 cups per day, Tims’ tomato coffee has repeatedly sold out, and this “add-some-veggies-to-your-coffee” revolution has spread from social media hype to every corner of the street, quickly becoming a trend embraced by young consumers. From Niche Experiment to Mass Phenomenon: The Rise of Vegetable Coffee Vegetable coffee simply refers to mixing the juices or extracts of “super vegetables” such as kale, beetroot, tomato, or carrot into coffee. Its popularity didn’t happen overnight. Instead, it evolved through several stages: Early Experiments: Independent cafés pioneered the movement with extremely bold ideas—cilantro sparkling Americano, Sichuan...

 Do you still remember CLR CFF, the colorless, crystal-clear coffee that went viral nearly a decade ago? I was lucky enough to actually try that “internet-famous” product back then. For so long, we all believed coffee could be reddish-brown, brown, or even red—but it never crossed our minds that coffee could exist as something completely transparent. When CLR CFF was first released, it immediately caught the attention of coffee lovers. It became the world’s first colorless coffee drink, and its production process was always described in a vague, mysterious way—“made with methods never used before.” It sounded almost mythical, and no one ever seemed to crack the secret behind it. Today, the brand’s social media accounts have gone silent, its official website is no longer maintained, and similar products have essentially vanished. So how did they manage to make coffee completely clear? Let’s talk about this “mysterious” technology. Simply put, the core idea is to keep the flavor and ...

 A new “edible coffee cup” has quietly gone viral across social platforms, becoming a must-try item for young consumers. On Xiaohongshu alone, over 38,000 users have posted about it, and total views have reached nearly 10 million—and the number keeps climbing. So, what exactly is an edible coffee cup? It’s an innovative concept emerging from the specialty-coffee scene: a cookie-like cup made from oat flour and other grains, baked into shape and coated with a layer of chocolate on the inside to prevent leakage. The cup can hold coffee for more than 30 minutes, making it fully functional while also fun and delicious. With both novelty and practicality, it perfectly hits consumers’ curiosity and has sparked a trend across multiple cities in China. ACOC Specialty Coffee in Chongqing is one of the first to ride this wave, and its signature drink, the Black Sesame Vienna , has become a viral sensation. Served in a crispy oat-cookie cup and topped with fluffy black-sesame cream, the drin...