曹祎遐：用咖啡文化串起满足美好生活需求的产业链 - 2021-04-23

The recently concluded Shanghai Coffee Culture Week themed “Because of Coffee, So Shanghai” has attracted well-known suppliers of coffee raw materials and products from home and abroad. It has demonstrated various products and services, and added many creative new elements, in addition to conventional activities such as industry forum, professional competition, introducing coffee, making coffee and tasting coffee. For Shanghai, coffee is not only related to its character and cultural features, but also concerned with its cultural industry and urban functions.

“Starbucks Index” reflects the concentration of innovation in the “City of Innovation”
In a sense, the coffee economy is an emerging industry and regarded as a specific indicator for a city’s economic development. Some scholars even use the “vitality of coffee economy” to judge the industrial development of a park or a city. Cushman & Wakefield, a renowned global real estate advisor, once released the “Starbucks Index”, using the number of Starbucks stores to measure commercial and spending vitality, and indirectly reflect the investment value of a city or a region. More Starbucks stores means more vitality and attractiveness. The 2020 International Cultural Metropolis Evaluation Report jointly published by Chinese and American academic teams at Shanghai Jiao Tong University shows that among the 50 international cultural metropolises worldwide, Shanghai ranks first in the number of cafes and teahouses. A small cup of coffee has created a 100-billion-yuan market here.
Some research results show that the environment of a cafe can stimulate one’s creativity. Douglas McWilliams put forward the concept of “Flat White Economy (FWE)”. According to his observations on the UK’s economic development, fashionable young people in the most innovative area have one thing in common, i.e. they often drink flat white coffee that is popular in cafes of East London. He wrote, “the creativity that is generated when talented people of different backgrounds and mindsets end up working together.” In his view, the FWE has made a great contribution to the growth of the UK’s economy.
In Shanghai, the FWE also exerts a significant influence. As a public space for people-to-people communication in places such as entrepreneurship parks, office buildings and universities, cafes have provided a bridge between different groups of people. Be it business negotiations, creative planning or leisure and entertainment, people prefer to conduct these activities in a cafe. With a cup of warm, fragrant coffee in hand, they can feel the seeds of innovation sprouting in their hearts during happy discussion. Starbucks has 850 stores in Shanghai, sufficient to reflect the concentration of innovation activities in the “City of Innovation”.
The booming coffee culture industry shows the city’s industrial competitiveness
As an imported product, coffee has been gradually integrated into Shanghai’s texture since it entered the city in the middle of the 19th century. Today, coffee is more than a kind of beverage and a cultural symbol. Given its characteristics and influence, the coffee culture industry has developed a unique industrial model during its development. As a space for interaction and integration, cafes are like an adhesive that integrates different elements such as different people, China and foreign cultures and various industries into the same space. The wonderful scene created by cafes shows a new industry model, and reflects the prospect of common development of multiple industries.
Have a cup of coffee on the street corner and enjoy a moving feast
Now, cafes often create immersive scenes and interactive experiences on purpose, so that customers can watch the coffee making process while tasting coffee, and even participate in activities during holidays to experience coffee makers’ work. This kind of interaction can bring the merchants and customers closer to each other, and add unlimited value to a simple cup of coffee. Besides, cafes can meet customers’ needs of one-stop shopping. As a gathering place for many products, they sell several kinds of products at the same time instead of a single kind, and provide personalized services according to consumers’ different needs.
The coffee culture industry is a kind of cultural and creative industry. In addition to innovations in Latte Art and coffee making, many cafes have launched peripheral products with cultural characteristics to seek joint development with other cultural industries. From setting up a reading corner or a discussion area in a cafe to the new model of coffee + bookstore, coffee + household store, coffee + art gallery, and “coffee + bookstore + cultural and creative products” coffee bookstore, an “Internet celebrity” industry model has taken shape, generating a result of “1+1>2”. A wide variety of products and services have enabled coffee culture to string together a huge range of industrial chains. Therefore, the booming coffee culture industry can be seen as a manifestation of a city’s industrial competitiveness. With people’s material life being basically guaranteed, their new aspiration is to live a better life. The coffee culture industry has developed a new model that can meet the new demand for a better life, thus having unlimited potential.
Today, various types of cafes on the streets and alleys of Shanghai create a landscape of urban culture. Having become the city’s business card, coffee is not only a drink and a cultural carrier, but also a lifestyle and an industrial model.
(Author: Cao Yixia, Deputy Director of Research Division for Cultural and Creative Industries of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)