Smoky flavors in coffee are often seen as a defect, but properly roasted dark roast beans, Guatemala origins, and coffee smoked with specific woods can deliver a pleasant smoky experience. Hokkaido University in Japan, in collaboration with Sapporo's Ritaru coffee, used century-old trees felled during the demolition of old school buildings to smoke coffee beans, giving the coffee a unique woody aroma. Roasters must repeatedly experiment and make adjustments based on tree species, moisture content, thickness, and other factors, and often choose Guatemala or Tanzania beans to harmonize the flavors. This article will take you through the story and professional details behind this innovative process. [more…]

Starbucks recently dropped a major piece of news in the Japanese market: to celebrate 25 years since the brand entered Japan, it launched 47 prefecture-exclusive Frappuccinos in one go, setting a record for the largest single-product launch in Starbucks history. These 47 drinks were designed by local employees based on the specialties and memorable highlights of their respective hometowns, from Hokkaido corn cream to castella coffee cream, with each cup carrying its own unique regional culture. This article will walk you through the creative inspirations behind these limited-edition Frappuccinos, their signature flavors and how they are made, along with release dates and purchase restrictions. [more…]

Milk tea, as a beverage popular worldwide, has developed into many forms depending on the region, including latte, bubble tea, Hong Kong-style milk tea, Hokkaido milk tea, Thai milk tea, and Indian masala chai. Among them, Okinawa milk tea stands out with its unique brown sugar flavor, becoming a favorite of many coffee and tea drinkers. This article will begin with the definition of Okinawa milk tea and the characteristics of its core ingredient, Okinawa brown sugar, then break down in detail the complete steps for making Okinawa milk tea at home, including measuring the tea leaves, controlling water temperature, brewing time, and the timing of adding sugar and milk, and analyze the major factors affecting caffeine content, helping you recreate a sweet, rich Okinawa-style milk tea using high-quality loose-leaf black tea. [more…]

After the Start of Summer, the weather gradually heats up, and Luckin Coffee has seized the moment to launch a new watermelon series, with its watermelon latte quickly trending on Weibo. From garlic latte to watermelon latte, the boundaries of coffee specialty drinks are constantly being pushed. This article compiles specific information about Luckin's new watermelon series, netizen reviews, and the backdrop of Luckin surpassing Starbucks in store count and its products increasingly resembling milk tea, while also exploring how the coffee industry is following in Luckin's footsteps toward milk-tea-fication. Coffee enthusiasts who enjoy trying new things may want to take note. [more…]

When ordering at a coffee shop, many customers are in the habit of writing personalized requests in the remarks section, from no ice or less ice to adjusting the number of syrup pumps, and these operations are still manageable for baristas. However, when the remarks escalate into requests to add extra ingredients outside the recipe, even down to precise milliliters and spoon counts, coffee workers find themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, they worry that refusing will lead to a bad review; on the other, they face accountability pressure from material loss. This contradiction is especially prominent in chain brands with strict material controls. This article will take an in-depth look at the real dilemma behind this phenomenon and present the true voices of baristas. [more…]

The coffee consumption boom is spreading from commercial districts to university campuses, and college students have become an important group of high-frequency coffee consumers. Luckin Coffee has seized a first-mover advantage with more than a thousand campus stores, while brands such as Starbucks, Tims, Manner, M Stand, and NOWWA have also entered universities one after another, and Mixue Ice Cream & Tea's Lucky Cup is closely pursuing with about 260 campus stores. This article sorts out each brand's layout strategy, store data, and competitive situation on university campuses, and includes Front Street Coffee's specialty bean information, to help you understand the real landscape of the campus coffee track. [more…]

Recently, students near Shanghai's University Road discovered that the Tims Coffee University Road store, which had accompanied them for over five years, was dismantling its signage and quietly closing down. When it opened in 2019, this store was the largest location Tims had in Shanghai after entering the city. Comprising a two-story North American-style wooden cabin with a total area exceeding 400 square meters, it was not only a landmark meeting spot for nearby residents but also a carrier of youthful memories for many university students who studied, dated, and prepared for exams off campus. Its sudden closure has sparked widespread attention and regret, as well as various speculations about the reasons behind it. This article will revisit the unique features of this store, present the real reactions of customers, and sort out the possible reasons for its closure. [more…]

As finals approach and most students look forward to the holidays, students taking the elective coffee course at Heilongjiang University of Science and Technology hope the course never ends—because finishing it means never again getting to drink the free coffee made fresh in class. In a classroom video, the teacher explains and prepares Irish coffee at the podium, flames dancing between glass cups, drawing gasps from the students. This elective, covering coffee culture, tasting, and preparation, has become one of the hardest courses to get into on campus, with some saying that even spending all their credits might not guarantee a spot. Students from other universities openly envy it, and graduates lament missing out on such a great course back in their day. This article will take you through what this coveted university coffee course actually teaches and why it is so wildly popular. [more…]

Recently, a Cotti Coffee outlet inside the cafeteria at Jilin University of Finance and Economics was suddenly vandalized by a male student. The bar area was left in complete disarray, with tables, chairs, takeaway cups, and cash register equipment scattered everywhere. According to students who witnessed the incident, the student involved appeared to have lost emotional control, possibly after being rejected in a confession of love. He first stomped his feet and slapped the tables, then flipped them over and rushed to smash the coffee shop's machines. The whole ordeal lasted over ten minutes, forcing the store staff to hide by the entrance. After the incident, campus security personnel quickly arrived and escorted the student away, and the university confirmed that no one was injured. The store involved has currently suspended operations, and the first floor of the cafeteria has returned to normal operation, but the exact amount of damage has not yet been disclosed. In this episode of coffee news, Front Street Coffee joins you in following the developments of the incident. [more…]

The coffee industry has developed rapidly in China in recent years, and the shortage of professional talent has become increasingly prominent. In 2024, Yunnan Agricultural University was approved to establish the country's first undergraduate program in Coffee Science and Engineering, and the first cohort of students officially enrolled in September. The launch of this program not only responds to the market's demand for talent across the entire coffee industry chain, but also marks a new stage in which coffee education in China is becoming systematized and professionally academic. From identifying coffee tree species in the field, to green bean grading, roasting parameter setting, and then to cupping and pour-over practice, the students' first lesson at the start of the semester is a content-rich introductory course on coffee. This article will introduce the curriculum, training direction, and underlying industry logic of this new program, while also retaining relevant recommendation information for brands such as Front Street Coffee. [more…]

September marks the start of the school season, and the campus coffee market is ushering in a new round of competition. Luckin Coffee is accelerating its penetration into universities with a "targeted location franchise" model, having opened more than 1,282 campus stores and rolled out over a hundred targeted locations. Its 9.9-yuan low-price strategy, creation of a third space, and campus culture collaborations have made university students an important force in coffee consumption. At the same time, brands such as Front Street Coffee are also paying attention to this trend. This article reviews Luckin's campus expansion path, the details of its franchise model, and five notable characteristics of campus coffee shops, analyzing the new campus battlefield amid the coffee industry's fierce competition. [more…]

When milk tea cup sleeves at Fudan University Medical School are printed with drug instructions, when Beijing University of Chinese Medicine adds ginger, cinnamon, dried tangerine peel, red dates, and goji berries to milk tea, and when Shanghai's time-honored Chinese medicine brand Tong Han Chun Tang uses "medicine and food homology" as a selling point to launch ginseng and peach gum milk tea, the milk tea category is undergoing a transformation attempt from "junk food" to "health drink." University cafeterias, Chinese medicine shops, and time-honored brands are all crossing over into the market, trying to reshape the image of milk tea with the concept of health. At the same time, milk tea brands are also making changes on the ingredient side, with fresh fruit and fresh milk replacing non-dairy creamer as selling points. However, news about milk tea on trending searches is repeatedly linked to food safety issues, and the road to transformation is not smooth. [more…]

University campuses have always been a potential market coveted by coffee brands, where steady foot traffic and relatively low rents tempt many chains to try their luck. Yet even a brand with as broad a customer base as Luckin, after opening in Tsinghua University's Qingfen Garden, once saw queues so long it was hard to get a seat—only to suddenly find the place emptied out. From posting a notice of temporary closure to hauling away all the equipment, what exactly happened to this store that students had held such high hopes for? Behind the operation of campus coffee shops, what little-known risks and challenges lurk? This article will take you through the sequence of events and explore the practical difficulties coffee brands must face when entering universities. [more…]

Attention coffee lovers,重磅 news has arrived: in the Ministry of Education's latest 2024 undergraduate program catalog, Yunnan Agricultural University's application for a "Coffee Science and Engineering" major has been officially approved, which means the world's first undergraduate coffee talent training program has landed in China. What exactly does this major study? Why is the market so hungry for coffee talent? This article will take you through the curriculum of this emerging major, the industry background, and the huge potential of the coffee market, while also focusing on the current imbalance between supply and demand of talent in the coffee industry. [more…]

At the end of 2021, a counterfeit Starbucks appeared in Caracas, Venezuela, with a logo highly similar to the real one, sparking widespread discussion. Now, a similar logo has appeared on the campus of Glenville State University in West Virginia, USA. Is this the spread of counterfeit behavior, or is there another story behind it? This article will help you clarify the essential difference between "We Proudly Serve Starbucks" and counterfeit Starbucks, and review the whole story of the counterfeit store in Venezuela. At the same time, we continue to follow coffee industry trends, and at the end of the article, we have included contact information for Front Street Coffee; coffee enthusiasts are welcome to join the discussion. [more…]

ChaPanda's new store at Konkuk University Station in Seoul, South Korea, recently officially opened its doors to customers. This is the brand's second store in the greater Seoul area, following its first store in Gangnam District earlier this year. At the same time, ChaPanda's stock price has performed impressively recently, with cumulative gains of nearly 70% over the past six trading days. From choosing South Korea as its first overseas destination, to launching Korea-exclusive products, to local consumers accounting for more than 80%, ChaPanda is validating its store model in the East Asian market through a differentiated strategy. This article will review ChaPanda's expansion path in South Korea, its product strategy, and the latest developments in the capital market. [more…]

Prolonged sitting has become an unavoidable part of modern life, and its health risks are drawing increasing attention. Multiple studies have confirmed that prolonged sitting raises the risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions, and can even shorten life expectancy. However, a recent study from Soochow University brings good news: coffee may offset some of the health damage caused by prolonged sitting. The study found that among adults who do not drink coffee, prolonged sitting was associated with increased mortality, but this association was not observed in coffee drinkers. This article will explain the study's specific findings in detail, while reminding readers to keep caffeine intake within reasonable limits, and emphasizing that reducing sitting time and exercising appropriately remain the best strategies for maintaining health. [more…]

Coffee has become a beverage with enormous global consumption, and its market in China continues to expand. More and more research has focused on coffee's effects on health, but previous studies have often overlooked the distinction between whether sugar is added or not. In 2022, a team from Southern Medical University published a paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine, using data from more than 170,000 people in the UK Biobank to analyze the relationship between unsweetened, sugar-sweetened, and artificially sweetened coffee and mortality risk. The results showed that moderate consumption of both unsweetened and sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with a lower mortality risk, but the amount of sugar added to sugar-sweetened coffee was far lower than that in commercially available fancy coffee drinks. This article interprets the core findings of that study and reminds consumers who like high-sugar coffee to pay attention to the difference. [more…]

Coffee is a commodity with global trade volume second only to crude oil, and its consumption growth in the East is particularly rapid, which is why scientific research surrounding it and human health has continued to deepen. Interestingly, the conclusions of related studies are not consistent: some have found that drinking coffee can slow cognitive decline, while others suggest that excessive consumption may shrink brain volume and increase dementia risk. This article reviews several representative cohort studies from around 2021, involving findings from Edith Cowan University in Australia, Tianjin Medical University, and the University of South Australia, attempting to clarify the complex associations between coffee intake and Alzheimer's disease and stroke, and to explore the relationship between the number of cups consumed daily and the safe upper limit of caffeine. [more…]

Drinking coffee and tea not only boosts alertness but may also protect our brains. A new study from Tianjin Medical University, published in PLOS Medicine, based on long-term tracking data from more than 360,000 people in the UK Biobank, has for the first time revealed the link between coffee and tea intake and the risk of stroke and dementia. The study found that moderate daily consumption of coffee or tea, or a combination of both, can reduce the probability of stroke and dementia to the lowest level. However, excessive coffee consumption may instead increase the risk of dementia. So how much is best to drink each day? And how do coffee and tea exert their protective effects? This article will explain in detail the key findings of this study. [more…]