Something's brewing in China besides tea

June 7, 1997
Web posted at: 10:04 p.m. EDT (0204 GMT)

BEIJING (CNN) -- In tradition-bound China, tea has always prevailed as the hot beverage of choice. But the Chinese are rapidly acquiring a taste for coffee.

"Coffee is seen as a Western product," Ron Thompson, vice president of Arabica Roasters, says. "It's associated with a higher type of product," one with "more prestige" than tea.

But China's coffee bean crop is not yet up to international standards. And that presents opportunity for Thompson. His three-year-old Arabica Roasters imports coffee beans from 20 countries into China.

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As seen on CNN, Abb Jones reports

VXtreme streaming video

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Coffee is the main attraction at Johnny's Coffee, the only independent coffee shop in Beijing. It is a magnet for China's burgeoning moneyed class, a mixed clientele including many exposed to Western influences. The coffee houses are particularly popular among young people.

And whereas the custom in the West is to drink coffee in the morning to help start the day, Chinese coffee drinkers tend to prefer it in the evening, after dinner.

"It wasn't so much that there was a market for coffee itself as there was a need for a place to hang out," Johnny Odom of Johnny's Coffee says. "There were always discos and bars, but there was no middle place."

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