Jay Chou's 2024 Carnival concert tour Nanjing stop will be held from September 26 to 29 at Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Stadium, with four consecutive days of performances expected to attract 120,000 spectators. At the same time, a Jay Chou-themed coffee shop called "Love in Coffee" has officially opened at Nanjing Xinjiekou Golden Eagle, making its debut alongside the concert. This coffee shop focuses on estate-grade coffee beans and Michelin three-star desserts, with an interior design infused with the poetic fantasy of "Love in Coffee," where greenery and stone intertwine, and mirrored light and shadow create a dreamy atmosphere. Many product names are taken from Jay Chou's classic songs, allowing fans to taste "lyric" drinks while listening to their idol's music. The first Beijing Sanlitun store had previously attracted a large number of fans to check in, and the operator, Star Plus, has close ties with Jay Chou. This article takes you through the features, prices, and fan experience of this celebrity coffee shop. [more…]

Recently, social media has been buzzing with rumors that Jay Chou opened a coffee shop called "Love Before the Common Era" in Sanlitun, Beijing, attracting a large number of fans to visit. However, upon verification, the shop was not opened by Jay Chou himself, but is part of a star IP incubation base created by the company Juxing Chuanqi. Jay Chou only made an appearance in the form of a check-in to support his wife Hannah Quinlivan's clothing pop-up store. Despite the truth, fans' enthusiasm remains high, and during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, they flocked to check in at the same photo spots. This coffee shop has friendly pricing, with Americano at only 18 yuan, which is quite conscientious in Beijing's coffee scene. Whether this small shop leveraging Jay Chou's traffic can establish a foothold in Sanlitun remains to be seen. [more…]

Today's young people have a great passion for running coffee shops, and this trend has also spread to the entertainment industry. JJ Lin previously opened several Miracle Coffee stores in China, and subsequently many celebrities followed suit, launching their own coffee brands. Recently, the trendy brand GOODBAI founded by actor Bai Jingting officially opened a coffee shop. On the opening day, a long queue formed before the store even opened, becoming a noticeable scene on Yanqing Road. Most of the people in the queue were fans of Bai Jingting, and some waited up to three hours just to buy a cup of coffee. Similar scenes occurred when Wang Hedi's D.DESIRABLE coffee shop opened, and the coffee shop that Jay Chou is preparing in Beijing has also kept fans eagerly anticipating. Are celebrities leveraging their fame to enter the highly competitive coffee market seriously doing coffee, or do they have other motives? This article will take you to find out. [more…]

Starbucks, which has long cultivated a business ambiance with soothing music such as jazz and blues, recently abruptly changed its playlists across stores nationwide, heavily featuring Chinese pop hits from the 2000s, including representative songs by artists such as Jay Chou, David Tao, and Jolin Tsai. This change caught regular customers off guard; some found it refreshingly down-to-earth, while others complained it made it hard to concentrate on work or study. Starbucks staff explained that the move was to celebrate the millennium birth of the Toffee Nut Latte and to build momentum for Christmas activities, and had nothing to do with equity changes. The new playlist is expected to run until the 17th, with interactive karaoke sessions at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. during this period. [more…]

This summer, bucket-sized fruit teas quietly took over milk tea shop menus. From Heytea and Nayuki to ChaPanda and CoCo, major brands have rolled out 1-liter or even larger bucket drinks, attracting consumers with high cost-performance. Bucket tea drinks are nothing new—back in 2019, they went viral thanks to Jay Chou fan support, and in 2020 Nayuki even launched a 5-liter "mighty bucket." However, issues like the short optimal drinking window and rapid bacterial growth in bucket tea drinks cannot be ignored. From giant buckets to portable packs, what evolution has bucket tea drinks undergone? And why have this summer's bucket fruit teas made a comeback? This article will break it all down for you. [more…]

Recently, the coffee brand WHATEVER COFFEE, founded by actor Daniel Wu, opened its first physical store on Dongda Road in Chengdu, sparking a wave of social media check-ins. This shop-in-shop, sharing space with a barbershop, features a minimalist black, white, and gray aesthetic. Its menu focuses on classic coffees and simple flavored drinks, priced between 20 and 34 yuan. The brand logo, a mask hand-drawn by Daniel Wu, symbolizes shedding pretense and returning to authenticity. In fact, the brand entered the coffee market as early as last June. Now, with the Chengdu store serving as a test outlet, a second independent location is already being scouted. Celebrities opening coffee shops is nothing new—from JJ Lin to Jay Chou—but behind the built-in traffic, whether the products and services themselves can withstand market scrutiny remains a topic worth watching. [more…]

Latte art is one of the skills that many coffee enthusiasts most want to master after falling down the rabbit hole. Starting from a latte art mishap shared by Jay Chou, this article systematically explains the key points for making a multi-layer heart and a rosetta. It first analyzes common problems such as milk foam being too thick and insufficiently fluid, then explains in detail the depth and angle control of the steam wand when frothing milk, as well as the effect of aeration time on foam thickness. In the integration stage, it introduces the circling and stirring technique of offsetting both hands by half a turn, with one higher and one lower. For the rosetta pattern, it focuses on the coordination between the pour point and the trajectory, maintaining the swing amplitude of the milk pitcher, and the correct process of lowering the pitcher spout first and then raising it to finish. The article also includes recommendation information for Front Street Coffee, making it suitable for friends who are practicing latte art. [more…]

Starbucks' performance in China continues to decline, and it is trying to reshape its brand appeal by launching NFT digital collectibles and building a virtual "third place." However, the NFT market is highly volatile and mired in controversy, and whether Starbucks can break through via the metaverse remains uncertain. This article sorts out the ins and outs of Starbucks' NFT plan and presents the different voices of netizens and industry insiders. [more…]

In today's booming beverage industry, brand imitation is an endless phenomenon. From milk tea to coffee, from store decor to brand naming, some merchants use highly similar visual designs to make it hard to tell real from fake. This article reviews cases of knockoff beverage stores that have sparked heated discussion online, covering imitation versions of well-known brands such as Heytea, Naixue, Yihotang, Starbucks, and Luckin, showcasing the "creative brainpower" of copycat merchants while also reminding consumers to pay more attention in their daily consumption. As coffee lovers, understanding these phenomena is not only interesting but also helps us more rationally distinguish authentic brands from fakes and support the development of original brands. [more…]

Have you ever had this confusion: why does a cup of SOE always taste noticeably sour? SOE stands for Single Origin Espresso, referring to espresso extracted from coffee beans of a single origin. It is fundamentally different from espresso blends in terms of flavor presentation and roasting choices. This article will start with the historical origins, tracing the evolution of espresso from single origin to blends and then back to SOE, and, combined with the turning-point event of the 2007 WBC competition, deeply analyze the root reason why most SOE tends to be sour—the influence of roast degree on the retention of acidity—to help you more clearly understand the positioning and selection logic of these two types of espresso beans. [more…]

China is a major tea-drinking country, and in recent years milk tea has become one of young people's favorite beverages. Coffee and milk tea both contain caffeine, yet Chinese people's preferences for the two differ markedly. Behind this lie factors ranging from genetic metabolic capacity to the low-caffeine habit formed by Chinese people's long history of tea drinking, occupational structure, and differences in how income groups rely on stimulants versus sugar. This article will analyze, from the angles of caffeine content, metabolic genes, tea-drinking tradition, and workplace consumption data, why Chinese people favor milk tea over coffee, and explore the potential health risks of excessive caffeine intake. [more…]

The bitterness of espresso puts many people off, so people have come up with various ways to add flavor and reduce the bitterness. From adding sugar and milk to adding cream, many classic Italian coffee drinks have been derived. Today, Front Street will sort out several fancy ways to drink espresso, including Ristretto and Lungo from short and long extractions, Cuban espresso with brown sugar, Macchiato topped with milk foam, and Con Panna with whipped cream. Each one, without changing the essence of espresso, makes the coffee easier to drink and brings a richer taste and tactile experience. If you also can't get used to the bitterness of pure espresso, why not follow Front Street and see which one suits you better. [more…]

It is no longer uncommon for celebrities to open coffee shops across industries, but Nicholas Tse's "Chef Nic" coffee shop that has now landed in Zhengzhou has taken a different route. The shop was jointly created by Chef Nic and Xinhua Youpin under Xinhua News Agency. In addition to serving coffee and light meals, it also displays poverty-alleviation agricultural products such as Yunnan Menglian coffee, Hebei Wuqiao roast chicken, and Inner Mongolia oatmeal, as well as intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and cultural merchandise. Fans who visited the shop reported that the coffee was mediocre, with the bean aroma not standing out enough, and that it felt more like a space for experiencing poverty-alleviation agricultural products. At the same time, many longtime fans have spoken up: rather than opening shops nationwide, it would be better to hold concerts quickly. [more…]

When golden fallen leaves cover every corner of a coffee shop, would you stop for this touch of autumn, or back away because of hygiene concerns? Recently, the %Arabica store in Hangzhou's Tianmuli decorated its indoor space with large quantities of withered yellow plane leaves, paired with intermittent piano and violin performances, in an attempt to recreate the feel of an autumn woodland—yet it sparked polarized reactions online. Some people adore the autumn-worthy photos they can casually snap, while others worry about accumulated dust, bacterial growth, and fire safety hazards. Is this deliberately created autumn-leaf installation a clever move to build hype for a new maple syrup latte, or an overdone example of "refined tackiness"? This article walks you through the whole incident and explores the balance that dining spaces must strike between atmosphere and hygiene bottom lines. [more…]

Faced with a bewildering variety of coffee beans, many enthusiasts wonder whether they can identify the variety by appearance alone. In fact, this is not as far-fetched as it seems—as long as you grasp the unique bean shape characteristics of each variety, you have a chance of doing so. This article compiles the appearance features of common varieties such as Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, SL28/SL34, and Geisha, and, in conjunction with specific products from the Front Street Coffee bean list, explains their respective flavor trajectories in pour-over and espresso extraction. Of course, it is not uncommon for different varieties to look alike, and judging by appearance alone has its limitations, so it is better read as a piece of variety education. [more…]

The cross-boundary combination of coffee and Chinese meals has long ceased to be novel—from youtiao and shaobing to pork intestine noodles and roujiamo, even the notoriously "stinky" luosifen has now joined this fusion experiment. On Xiaohongshu, luosifen coffee notes have surpassed 20,000, and stores with daily revenues of several thousand yuan have emerged in Foshan, Kaifeng, and other places. Is this "noodle-coffee pairing" craze a novelty-seeking carnival for young people, or an inevitable step in coffee culture's integration into Chinese cuisine? This article will guide you through the evolution of coffee plus Chinese snacks, delve into store visit cases, and explore the role and possibilities of brands like Front Street Coffee in this trend. [more…]

When ordering at Starbucks, staff usually write the customer's name on the takeaway cup to distinguish drinks and make it easier for customers to collect them. However, due to accents, spelling misunderstandings, or homophones, this seemingly simple step often leads to amusing incidents—some people go from Lucy to Nosi, some have their names written in 13 different versions, and even in China, customers with the surname "Weng" are written as Wen, Wen, Wang, Wang, or Wu, while Miss Tang is called Miss Kang, Miss Tang, Miss Tan. Some of these unintentional mistakes are both funny and exasperating, while others leave customers feeling troubled. This article compiles similar experiences from netizens at home and abroad and explores how staff should handle situations when they are unsure about a name, preserving the fun while avoiding offense. [more…]

On a scorching summer day, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius, would you rather pick up a glass of iced coffee or a hot coffee? Most people's instinct would be to choose a cold drink to dispel the heat, yet scientific research gives the exact opposite answer: a hot beverage may actually be the truly effective way to cool down. This article explores in depth the pros and cons of iced coffee versus hot coffee in summer from the perspectives of taste perception, the principle of ice dilution, and the body's sweating and evaporation mechanisms, and analyzes why some people insist on drinking hot coffee in the sweltering heat. Whether you are a loyal fan of iced coffee or a staunch supporter of hot coffee, this discussion about temperature and how it feels to the body is worth a read. [more…]