Pu’er Coffee

  Everyone Pays for Their Own Perception People who run coffee shops love doing the math. They calculate rent, labor, cup cost, gross profit—everything that can be quantified ends up in their Excel sheet. But what truly drags a shop down is often not those “measurable” numbers. I’ve seen countless shops where the rent isn’t high and labor is well controlled, yet the longer they operate, the tighter and more exhausting things become. Eventually, you realize what really drains them is another kind of invisible cost— Being self-opinionated. Not the arrogant kind, but the more common and subtle one: “I think this is the right way.” 01. Many shops aren’t defeated by the market, but by the owner’s own taste I’ve seen plenty of new shops where the moment you open the menu, you can feel it: The owner is creating “what they like,” not what “customers are willing to pay for.” For example: The owner doesn’t drink sweet drinks, so the menu has almost no sweet options The ow...

 If you often visit coffee shops for pour-over coffee and ask the barista whether a certain bean tastes better hot or iced, chances are they’ll recommend the hot version. Just yesterday, a friend buying beans complained about this and asked me, “Why do pour-overs have to be hot?” To be fair, the reason baristas recommend hot pour-overs isn’t because hot brews necessarily taste better than iced ones. As I’ve always emphasized, compared to iced pour-overs, hot pour-overs allow you to taste a more complete expression of a coffee’s flavors. Why does a hot pour-over offer more complete flavor? Most coffee shops — including mine — make iced pour-over using a flash-chill method. This means lowering the temperature by adding ice directly into the coffee so you can quickly get a cold cup of pour-over. But since the ice melts while cooling the coffee, the overall concentration inevitably becomes diluted. If we don’t want to end up with a watery cup, we need to increase the coffee concent...

 Before opening a coffee shop, the first thing you need to figure out isn’t the menu—it’s who you want to drink your coffee . When it comes to starting a café, the most overlooked factor isn’t cost, location, or even the menu. It’s a simple question that ends up determining 80% of your shop’s future: Who do you hope will walk in? Or to put it more directly— Who are you brewing for? In many owners’ workflow, this step barely exists. They start with equipment, roast levels, interior style, or screenshots of café aesthetics from Instagram. But here’s the problem: You can do everything well and still have no one willing to drink your coffee. Not because you’re not good enough— but because you don’t even know who you’re making it for. 01. A café “without users” becomes nothing more than the owner’s personal portfolio I’ve seen many shops where, the moment you walk in, you can sense one thing: This café is made for the owner , not the customer . He loves dark roasts, so eve...

  Before opening my shop, I always thought the most crucial factors were how good the coffee tasted, the quality of the equipment, and whether the location was prime real estate. But after observing the industry for several years—from booming spots to struggling ones, from newcomers to veterans—I've come to a counter-intuitive conclusion: The most important thing for a coffee shop's survival isn't the coffee itself, but whether it has its own "reason for being." Because once you actually open a shop, you'll realize that coffee is just the entry point. What truly affects a shop's destiny is its purpose, its consistency, its memorability, and how you interact with your customers. Let's break down this "most important thing" below. 01 Why Do You Want to Open a Coffee Shop? More Important Than the Menu Most people think the first step to opening a shop is choosing a location. But it's not. It's "why you want to open this particular s...