Coffee lovers are in for a real treat at the three-day Coffee Youth Day festival in Beijing's INDIGO shopping mall.

Running from April 9 to 11, more than 50 highly sought-after specialty coffee brands are showing off their latest espresso machines, grinders and beans, offering visitors a valuable chance to indulge their taste buds. 

Apart from caffeine, the festival also features live DJs, art and a medley of wine and gourmet food stalls.

Coffee lovers always know how to find the best place to savor authentic coffee in Beijing. With local roasters and barista-led coffee shops now in nearly every corner of Beijing's hutong area, this ancient city has gradually emerged as a specialty coffee capital. You can now grab a real cup of coffee while strolling in Beijing's most picturesque area, or just simply take a seat and meet a friend in one of the coffee shops. From hipster hutong hideaways to mall pit stops, you'll always find somewhere to get your caffeine fix. 

Coffee drinkers in China are also getting more sophisticated. Besides drinking instant coffee, an increasing number of young people in Beijing enjoy hand drip and other varieties of pour-over coffee. 

Having organized four indie coffee festivals in Beijing over the past few years, Gao Xue, founder of Walking with Coffee, a trade media outlet founded in 2015 with the original name of Walking Coffee Map, told CGTN that the theme of this year's festival is quite different.

"The theme of 'Walking in Hutongs' is to pay tribute to Beijing's hutong coffee culture," Gao said, adding that Beijing's most fashionable and avant-garde cafes were born in hutongs from 2013 to 2017. "We invited the brands that have been founded in hutongs to come to this mall, and then each brand uses the hutong culture as the characteristics to do their brand promotion and decoration. Meanwhile, they made nearly 80 kinds of creative coffee with the theme of hutongs."

When it comes to the original idea of putting the scene of old Beijing in a fashionable business district like INDIGO, Gao stated that there will be a collision between the new and the old. "It will also motivate more people who may not have many relations with old Beijing culture, to come and feel the old Beijing culture."

Reporter: She Jingwei

Videographer: Yang Yang

Video editor: Wu Chutian

Cover image designer: Jia Jieqiong