Recorded Saturday July 25, 2020.
This week’s LIVE episode was all about the state of the retail coffee industry here in China. This is very much from my perspective and based on what I see mainly in Beijing and from the cities I often visit for work purposes.
Why am I talking about coffee?
This episode was inspired by the recent opening of Tims咖啡 here in Beijing, which is the Chinese subsidiary of the Canadian coffee chain, Tim Hortons. I finally visited the coffee shop at The Place here in Beijing and tried out a couple of items from the menu and was impressed by most of it, except for the donut, which tasted rather plasticky.
From this starting point, I venture into some of the coffee shops that can be found throughout China, the business partnerships of Alibaba / Starbucks and this new Tencent / Tim Hortons, and then roasting my own coffee.