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Hutong coffee shop a blend of old and new
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While steamed bun manufacturer Goubuli is in talks to buy out a US coffee chain to promote Chinese cuisine overseas, Beijing has had its own upsurge in dining imports, with a glut of Western-style shops, bars, cafes and restaurants popping up.
They’ve always been around in the capital, but in just a few short years, the range, quantity and quality of outlets have shot up.
Ma Kaimin, also known as Phil Ma, is feeding this appetite for new food ventures. He owns Soloist Coffee Co in Qianmen area, running a cafe down a hutong not far from the famous Dashilar shopping street.
While his shop sits squarely in a chunk of old Beijing — the hutong is among many tiny alleyways from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and a short walk from Tiananmen Square — inside, the decor wouldn’t look out of place in London or New York.
Mismatched furniture, exposed brickwork and bare filament bulbs found in any number of hip Western bars are in abundance. No effort is made to conceal the pipes and cables powering the many machines and antique advertising posters adorning the walls, alongside a bicycle fixed somewhere near head height.
A specialist dealer
The specialty coffee is a far cry from the ever-popular Nescafe 1+2 sachets and the ubiquitous Starbucks. Here, Ma sets up a stand looking suspiciously like a chemistry set in which he slowly filters the coffee into a glass jug. The default serving is black to ensure the customer tastes the complex flavors of the beans sourced by a specialist dealer.
He politely suggests not to confuse the palate with a snack before tasting, saying the coffee is at its best before falling to room temperature.
He was trained in South Korea and holds professional accreditation from the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), becoming a “licensed Q grader.” They roast the green beans in-store. In other words, he takes his caffeine very seriously.
Ma, 35, is also a photographer and draws comparisons between the two passions, explaining that the need for technical know-how goes hand-in-hand with creativity, though he says coffee also makes him feel “connected to nature.”
“In photography, you need to practise certain required skills and buy appropriate equipment, but people have different approaches. The coffee is just like that.”
“Also, the photographer has to have a good eye, to know the different effects of different light and so on. With coffee, you have to develop a good palate to tell the difference between different beans.”
His attention to detail stretches to the decor, the carefully handpicked antique furniture and very particular industrial look. “The environment and coffee have something in common: craftsmanship. The style is 1930s, the age of industry. In that era, people put equal emphasis on industrialization and craftsmanship.”
Choosing a time of huge development as inspiration is apt, however, while he acknowledges the style as Western, he is polite but firm in saying that he is not trying to ape Western culture or solely attract foreign tourists and expats. He is reluctant to attribute the growing popularity of coffee shops in China to Western influence.
“To some extent,” he says. “But looking at the whole history of coffee, in Western countries coffee is also a relatively new thing. There are few coffee shops like ours in China, but they will gradually become more widespread.”
He calls the passion for coffee “an international thing because this coffee revolution has just started and it’s worldwide.”
Some big international brands entering China have encountered problems — Starbucks recently came under fire for allegedly charging Chinese consumers a premium to enjoy the same product sold more cheaply elsewhere.
But shops like Ma’s are part of a cultural interaction rather than a wholesale import, and the fact it’s down a hutong and not in one of the shiny new shopping malls speaks to that.
Relocation to Qianmen
Four months ago, a government enterprise asked Ma to relocate from the art district, where he’d been for over a year, to Qianmen. While there’s been conflict between the rapid modernization of Beijing and the preservation of its more traditional areas, especially with many demolished to make way for high-rises, Ma says development and heritage don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
“The government wants to develop this area and thought my shop was unique and wonderful,” he explains. “I was happy to move because we can have a long-term lease here and plan for the business’ future.”
Redevelopment is better than knocking everything down. “It keeps the vitality of the area. If you treat it as a human, it’s like keeping the life of person and the character.”
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