Langyuan Station Coffee Festival: A microcosm of global coffee culture landing in Beijing

Beijing's annual grand coffee event, the Langyuan Station Coffee Festival, came back this year with a bigger flare, for the first time hosting a coffee and chocolate double feast under one roof. It almost didn't happen – Friday's opening was cancelled as Beijing was battered by rain and thunder. 

However, the organizers shifted the entire event indoors for Saturday, and as it turned out, ungodly weather is no obstacle for a crowd of true coffee lovers. So we headed in on Saturday, slightly damp but full of that anticipatory buzz.

Running for the third consecutive year, this festival is an annual event at the Central Station of the Capital Group Langyuan Station, the venue's industrial bones giving the whole thing a cool, market-meets-exhibition feel. 

This year's lineup had seen a significant upgrade, both in scale and in the range of what was on offer. Premium coffee brands from China and around the world filled the floor, showcasing professional brewing equipment alongside creative signature drinks, specialty coffee beans and regionally distinctive blends, all in one place. 

An ice-cold americano in hand, I proceeded to have a few pleasant conversations with the visitors and exhibitors.

Christian and Nora, a German couple, were happy to have stumbled upon the festival announcement on WeChat. "We saw stores from different areas of China – local ones from Hangzhou, from Xinjiang. It's tiny shops that only exist in their special region or city, and now they're all coming together here," Christian said, visibly delighted by the discovery. Their highlight was a coffee from Inner Mongolia called the Mongolia Dirty – a drink where the coffee serves as the base and a crispy rice milk crumble sits on top. "It was quite delicious," Nora added, mentioning, almost as an aside, that she'd missed a matcha event at the same venue a few weeks earlier. The FOMO had been real, but this, she said, completely made up for it.

Pyo Sangmin, who had travelled from South Korea to exhibit Ampresso's espresso machines – the brand's second appearance at a Chinese coffee festival after a debut in Nanjing – said the decision to come back was easy. Where the coffee culture grows, he noted, hardware follows, and that's where they want to be. 

The chocolate and cocoa element was new this year. As we walked further in, somewhere between the third and fourth booth, rich coffee scents gave way to the unmistakable aroma of cocoa.

Paúl, an Ecuadorian importer exhibiting Pacari, an organic chocolate brand that has made inroads across Europe and the United States and is now finding its footing in China, was very enthusiastic. "We're excited to be in China. Pacari is not just an organic dessert. It's actually a pre-workout," he said, before explaining that a square of dark chocolate paired with a shot of coffee makes for the perfect pre-gym combination – a pitch avid gym-goers will find hard to argue with.

One of the more charming finds on the floor was Super Puppy Plan (超级小狗计划), a three-year-old pet-themed Chinese coffee brand built around an original illustrated puppy character appearing on their cups, packaging and plush toys. A small homegrown brand with a distinct identity – it was exactly the kind of find the festival seems designed to surface.

Another interesting find on the floor belonged to Ching, founder of Playground, a two-year-old ceramics studio from Wenzhou whose entire identity is built around a single, brilliantly odd concept. Her mugs and plates, handmade and individually signed, feature handles that end in tiny handcrafted shoes – brogues, slippers, flip-flops, Birkenstocks. "Hand shoe is from the German word for gloves, literally translated, shoes for the hand. I take the mug handle, put the shoes on the hand. That's the concept," she explained. 

We left the festival several cups of coffee deep, topped off with a local ice cream treat and the lingering warmth of a chocolate rush. Bags heavier, wallets lighter and the Langyuan Station Coffee Festival, rain and all, having earned its distinguished place on the 2027 annual calendar.

Editor's note: Zaruhi Poghosyan is a multimedia editor for CGTN Digital. This is the first of a two-part series on exploring how China went from a nation of tea drinkers to one of the world's fastest-growing coffee markets.