Craving for coffee

By Li Lin Source:Global Times Published: 2014-10-9 19:03:01

China’s growing cafe industry stymied by the lack of qualified baristas


New cafe owners in China are finding it increasingly difficult to hire suitably qualified baristas. Photo: IC

 

On the eve of the opening of a cafe in Hebei Province she had been asked to manage, 24-year-old Jiang Zhuoling found herself in a quandary.

The two baristas Jiang had taken months to hire had just telephoned to say they quit.

"It left us in a complete mess," recalls Jiang. "I had to perform all the duties of a barista by myself."

Despite posting recruitment notices on numerous employment websites, it took Jiang a full month to find replacements. They were not as experienced as the baristas who had suddenly left, but Jiang could not wait any longer.

"At the very least, they knew a little bit about how to prepare coffee, unlike most of the other applicants who knew nothing about coffee at all, and were just seeking to be apprentices," said Jiang.

The cafe industry in China has boomed over the past decade, catering to a growing middle-class eager to be identified with a cosmopolitan lifestyle. According to UK-based market research company Mintel, between 2007 and 2012, the number of cafes in China doubled from 15,898 to 31,283, including large chain stores and small, individual cafes.

Ji Ming, a 14-year veteran of China's cafe industry and a registered barista with the Specialty Coffee Association of America, estimates there are now around 40,000 cafes in China.

With the number of cafes in the country growing at such a prolific rate, qualified baristas are in short supply. While franchises like Starbucks and Costa Coffee have in-house training programs for new employees, independently owned and operated coffee shops like the one managed by Jiang have struggled to find qualified staff to serve their customers.

Where are all the coffee drinkers?

Ji said the lack of trained baristas in China can be explained by the fact that there are still relatively few people in the country who consume coffee. Furthermore, the quantities they consume remain relatively small, despite the flourishing number of cafes.

A cup of coffee at a franchise store like Starbucks can cost over 30 yuan ($5), which is prohibitively expensive for many. This limits not only the number of coffee drinkers, but how frequently people are willing to consume coffee. According to International Coffee Organization, the total consumption of coffee in 2011 in the Chinese mainland was just 10,097 tons, while in the US and the UK it was 1.32 million tons and 175,527 tons respectively.    

Ji said that while it takes only 10 to 20 days to train a barista in the basic skills required to perform the role, to become a good barista requires on-the-job practice. This was difficult to come by given that most small coffee shops sold no more than 50 cups of coffee per day.

Another reason for the lack of trained baristas in China is the relatively low wages the job commands.

"A baristas' salary is quite low - somewhere between that of a waiter and a chef," said Liu Yao, a 30-year-old woman who is in the process of opening her own cafe. "On a recruitment notice in a cafe in Wangjing area, I noticed that the salary being offered to waiters was 2,500 yuan per month, for baristas it was 3,000-3,500 yuan, and for chefs it was 5,000-6,000 yuan."

Clueless cafe owners

Ji suggested the explosion of new cafes was also to blame for the shortfall of baristas in China. More and more people were frivolously opening coffee shops because they considered it trendy to own a coffee shop, said Ji, without understanding the business or knowing anything about coffee themselves.

"Cafe owners should be the ones who understand their business best, but most of cafe owners in China do not," said Ji. "That's why qualified baristas are needed so badly."

Ke Ning, 28, is one such case. In 2010, he opened his own cafe in Beijing's Haidian district, but was forced to close down just two years later.

"I knew nothing about coffee then; I didn't even know how to use a coffee machine," said Ke. "I just wanted to have my own cafe because I thought it was fashionable. I dreamt of running a cafe like Starbucks, a symbol of fashion, leisure and entertainment."

When he sold the cafe in 2012, he had lost around 80,000 yuan of his initial investment. The cafe was converted into a malatang (spicy kebab) shop by the new owners.

"In the end I could not afford to pay for the waitresses and the barista, and they left," said Ke, who now works in the IT industry. "I did not know how to make coffee, so the cafe had to be closed."

A number of businesses have even cropped up in recent years to capitalize on naive would-be cafe-owners. While Ji was at a branch of franchise coffee chain Maan Coffee near Beijing Workers' Stadium recently, he was approached by a man who offered to set up a coffee shop for him.

"Do you want to open a cafe like Maan Coffee?" Ji recalls the man saying. "I can offer an all-in-one setting up service for you. Furniture, equipment, decoration, staff, we'll prepare everything for you so that it's almost identical to Maan Coffee."

Ji said he also knew of recruitment agents that took advantage of the fact that there are so few qualified baristas in China. These agents charge a fee that is triple the amount of a barista's salary, in return for supplying a trained barista to the cafe.

"In China, the coffee industry is developing in a weird direction," said Ji. "It's really weird for a person who knows nothing about coffee to open a coffee shop."

Ji estimated that around 60 percent of cafes in China operate in the red.

Some aspiring young cafe owners have chosen to train as baristas themselves to save the trouble of recruiting. Photo: CFP

 

Crazy about coffee

In contrast to cafe owners seduced by the idea of owning a cafe without knowing anything about coffee, a number of young baristas who are passionate about coffee are beginning to open their own cafes. As qualified baristas themselves, they can avoid the problem of needing to find a good barista by simply preparing the coffee themselves.  

Qiao Qi, 25, has wanted to own his own cafe since he was an architecture student. 

After working for several months at an architecture firm after graduating, Qiao quit his job to dedicate himself to learning more about coffee. He began working at a small cafe at the Communication University of China for a meager salary of just 1,600 yuan per month. After two years' working at the cafe, Qiao signed up to a barista's course in Singapore, run by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe.  

For the past several months, he has been working as a barista at Ji's cafe in Beijing's Chaoyang district.

"At first, it was just something that I thought would be fashionable and fun," said Qiao. "But later, when I changed vocations and started learning about what it takes to own a cafe, I realized it's not so easy."

Although the wages are "not that high," according to Qiao, he sees it as an invaluable learning experience for running his own cafe one day.

 "I'm pursuing my dream through hard work," said Qiao. "That's why I'm still working in other people's cafes, to learn more and to accumulate more experience."

Qiao plans to open his own cafe sometime next year.

"I'll be my own barista," he said. "It'll be just me, so it doesn't need to be a large cafe. But I think I will enjoy managing it and making every cup of coffee by myself."



Posted in: Metro Beijing

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