From the audience profile of Pu’er coffee, most consumers fall within the 25–35 age range. This group also represents a major driving force in the domestic consumer market. As coffee culture continues to spread and gradually becomes part of everyday life, home coffee equipment is constantly evolving and upgrading alongside it. With the growing accessibility of home setups—such as espresso machines with precise temperature control and high-quality grinders—as well as specialty coffee beans, recreating a cup at home that “rivals a café” has become entirely achievable. From my own observations, many coffee enthusiasts around me are not only café-goers, but also regularly brew coffee at home. Most of them own fairly complete brewing setups, and some have even installed commercial-grade equipment in their homes.
This leads us to an unavoidable question: when my “kitchen” understands my taste better than the café downstairs, and when AI can even pour latte art for you, how much is the “human touch” of a café still worth? When coffee machines begin to “think,” what exactly can cafés continue to sell? In reality, many people’s coffee consumption habits are already shifting—from “going out for coffee” to “making it at the table.” Data shows that Gen Z consumers aged 18–24 are particularly drawn to fruit-based and tea-infused coffee drinks. They are willing to pay premiums for collaborations, view home coffee as a form of “social currency,” enjoy DIY, and love sharing their creations on social media. They also tend to favor capsule machines and convenient solutions. Those aged 25–39, the backbone of the workforce, typically consume one to three cups per day and pay close attention to origin and roasting techniques. Among this group, home coffee users are growing rapidly, with a 45% increase in the adoption of fully automatic machines—reflecting a pursuit of balance between quality and efficiency. Consumers aged 35–49 tend to prefer low-caffeine and health-oriented products, often bringing their children along to experience coffee culture, and their average spending per order is about 20% higher than the market average. Meanwhile, among those over 50, around 70% prefer low-caffeine coffee, show strong loyalty to traditional espresso, and favor user-friendly smart machines.
It’s clear that many people are considering investing in home coffee setups. For coffee lovers, the demand for home equipment is essentially about an “externalized sense of satisfaction.” The emotional reward of making a cup yourself—of crafting a latte art design—is fundamentally different from simply buying a cup every day. Younger consumers, in particular, want to enjoy a café-level experience at home, prioritizing factors like refrigeration, convenience, customization, and craftsmanship. In the past, many of my colleagues would bring a bottle of homemade cold brew to the office during summer. Whatever they didn’t finish could be stored in the office fridge—because, quite simply, “what you make yourself just tastes better.”
Even so, what value do cafés offer today? For those who can already make a decent cup at home, are they still willing to walk into a café? Speaking for myself, while part of my motivation for visiting cafés is to gather material for writing, I still ultimately serve my own needs first. Even though I have a fairly complete commercial-grade setup at home, I still enjoy going to cafés. In fact, the value of cafés is evolving. You’ll find that most cafés have shifted from being purely functional places that “serve a good cup of coffee” to becoming experience-driven spaces that offer layered, multifaceted value.
From a product standpoint, although the number of home coffee users is growing, those willing to invest over $1,000 in a machine remain a minority. When it comes to espresso, the difference in equipment quality truly embodies the principle of “you get what you pay for.” Even high-end home machines struggle to replicate the results of top-tier commercial espresso machines worth tens of thousands of dollars, paired with premium grinders and supported by tightly controlled roasting and extraction environments. In this sense, cafés serve as the most accessible “laboratories of ultimate flavor” for the average person. By simply visiting a café, you can experience the synergy of these high-end tools—without having to invest in them yourself.
This is also why competition among cafés has become so intense. When home coffee can reach an “80 out of 100,” cafés must aim for “95 or higher”—especially given how many cafés there are. Another important factor is variety. Most home users are unlikely to invest in equipment like cold drip towers or complex cold brew systems just for one or two cups, nor can they realistically maintain a selection of a dozen different beans from various regions and processing methods. Cafés effectively offer a “low-cost gateway to exploration.”
There is, however, one core value of cafés that will never disappear: their role as a space of emotional and psychological belonging. This is not just an abstract concept—I deeply believe in it. My own journey began with a love for cafés, and only later did I start to explore and study coffee itself. A café is a place of escape and transition—a “third space.” Home is the “first space,” filled with responsibilities and daily routines; the office is the “second space,” defined by pressure and KPIs. The café, by contrast, offers a “bounded public environment.” Here, you can be surrounded by people without feeling lonely, while still maintaining anonymity and freedom. This kind of “loosely connected” social experience is something the home cannot provide.
Think of neighborhood cafés: after work on weekdays, waves of customers still come in. They’re not just there for coffee—they want to sit for a while before heading home. They might strike up conversations with strangers, unwind, or simply enjoy the sensory journey—from the chime of the doorbell upon entering, to the ambient music, to the sight of a barista behind the counter, to the delicate coffee cups. This entire sequence creates a subtle sense of “self-reward,” and that ritualistic feeling is a vital part of the consumption experience.
Another important function of cafés is their role as micro cultural hubs. Many café owners host cupping sessions, latte art workshops, or even small exhibitions, connecting local creative communities. This kind of real, human interaction is something that “online socializing” can never fully replace. Ultimately, a café’s core competitiveness no longer lies in whether its coffee tastes better than what you can make at home, but in whether the space itself draws you in—and whether the barista and the community atmosphere give you a reason to return.
