Where do Costa Coffee beans come from, and what happened to Blue Bottle's Shanghai store?

Blue Bottle Coffee's first mainland China store, the Shanghai Yutong location, announced a temporary closure in response to pandemic control measures. The shop had drawn a seven-hour queue on its opening day. Shanghai reported 17 new locally confirmed cases and 492 asymptomatic infections on March 19, with 22 more confirmed cases and 494 asymptomatic infections by 17:00 on March 20.

The brand built its reputation on freshly roasted coffee and is often treated as a reference point in the specialty coffee scene, which is why mainland drinkers had waited years for a store. Its temporary farewell left many regulars disappointed. Health measures come first, and further updates on when the Yutong store resumes business are still to come.

Blue Bottle Coffee's first mainland China store — Shanghai Yutong Store, from the phenomenal seven-hour queue on opening day to announcing a temporary closure in response to pandemic control measures, what has it gone through? This article reviews the changes in foot traffic since the store opened, the adjustments to pandemic prevention measures, and the development of this round of the pandemic in Shanghai. As a brand widely recognized as the "textbook" in the specialty coffee field, Blue Bottle's temporary farewell this time has left many coffee lovers feeling regretful. In the face of the pandemic, health always comes first, and we will continue to follow the updates on its resumption of business.

According to the report from the Shanghai Health Commission, on March 19, the city recorded 17 new locally confirmed cases and 492 asymptomatic infections throughout the day. Among these infected individuals, 6 confirmed cases were reclassified from previous asymptomatic infections, another 9 confirmed cases and 232 asymptomatic infections were identified through screening within quarantine and controlled areas, and the rest were found during testing of related at-risk populations.

As of press time, from 0:00 to 17:00 on March 20, Shanghai reported another 22 new locally confirmed cases, 494 asymptomatic infections, and 5 imported cases.

Blue Bottle Coffee Yutong Store is the brand's first store in mainland China. This brand has always centered on the core concept of supplying freshly roasted coffee, which is why it has consistently been highly sought after by coffee lovers in other markets, and within the specialty coffee circle, Blue Bottle is even regarded as a "textbook" presence.

As Blue Bottle Coffee's fame grew but it still had not entered the mainland market, mainland coffee enthusiasts had long been full of curiosity and anticipation for this brand. So when Blue Bottle announced its entry into the mainland and finalized the location of its first store, many people made preparations early to go "sprint" for a check-in visit on opening day.

On the first day Blue Bottle Coffee Shanghai Yutong Store officially opened its doors to customers, the spectacular scene of people queuing to check in was shared in real time by netizens on major social platforms. Quite a few customers who arrived a bit later that day said they queued for nearly 7 hours before getting into the store, and after entering, they waited another 45 minutes from placing their order to picking it up. Even without being on site, just reading these descriptions gives a sense of how crowded it was at the time.

While netizens were excitedly yet exhaustedly checking in, others were frowning with concern about whether the queuing situation posed safety hazards. From photos posted by many netizens, it could be seen that during the queue, some people had become lax in their prevention awareness, not wearing masks properly, and people were standing quite densely together.

To ease congestion inside the store, Blue Bottle Coffee also adopted a regular entry arrangement, admitting 8 to 10 people per batch. But customers did not leave immediately after picking up their orders, so whether inside or outside the store, the number of people increased quickly and decreased slowly.

As the check-in hype gradually faded, the number of people coming to check in dropped noticeably three days after opening, but queuing to buy was still the norm. Shanghai's pandemic situation showed an upward trend in confirmed cases starting in March, and by 0:00 to 24:00 on March 17, single-day confirmed cases reached 57. Yet this number did not shake people's enthusiasm for queuing to buy Blue Bottle Coffee, and some netizens joked: during the pandemic, apart from those lining up for nucleic acid tests, this is probably where the most people are queuing.

Blue Bottle Coffee has also recently taken corresponding pandemic prevention measures: customers can only order remotely and pick up their drinks outside the door, and cannot enter the store. Even so, netizens were still willing to queue for more than an hour. Because Shanghai's daily confirmed cases continued to remain high, in order to better cooperate with pandemic prevention and control, Blue Bottle Coffee officially announced at 9 p.m. the night before that it would temporarily suspend business, with the resumption time to be announced separately. This means the closure may last more than 48 hours.

The pandemic situation has recently become increasingly severe. According to the report from the National Health Commission, from 0:00 to 24:00 on March 19, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 1,737 new confirmed cases, including 81 imported cases and 1,656 local cases.

With the pandemic upon us, health is far more important than drinking coffee. Everyone should still earnestly cooperate with pandemic prevention efforts and avoid gatherings.

Image source: Blue Bottle Coffee official, internet, Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.