All About Love for Autistic Kids: Shanghai coffee shop creates social experience for autistic baristas

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An estimated 14 million people in China have autism. Helping them become contributing members of society has long been a challenge for both the government and social groups. But one coffee shop in Shanghai may hold the secret recipe. CGTN's Yang Chengxi brews up a cup of heart-warming goodness.

This is Love Coffee in Shanghai. At first glance, it looks like your run-of-the mill cafe. A cozy environment, the usual assortment of coffee styles. But there's a neat catch: the drinks are free of charge. All customers need to do is to chat with the baristas and service people. They live with autism.

CAO XIAOXIA FOUNDER OF LOVE COFFEE "These kids learn how to make coffee very quickly and can be very meticulous. What they struggle with is communicating with people around them."

YANG CHENGXI SHANGHAI "Customers are even encouraged to be "nit-picky": just ask them for a straw or a napkin, or create some assignments that they can fulfill. 

CAO XIAOXIA FOUNDER OF LOVE COFFEE "You should give them a hard time in a sense. Let them get a taste of what society is like."

VOLUNTEER SHANGHAI "This is my first time here. I didn't know a lot about autism so I wasn't sure how to interact with them. But after this morning, I feel like they're not very different from other people."

The store struggles to stay afloat in the expensive and ritzy downtown of Shanghai. In May, Love Coffee was forced to temporarily shut down due to lack of funding.

CAO XIAOXIA FOUNDER OF LOVE COFFEE "The kids were very upset about it. But I think it was a blessing in disguise. They have experienced harder obstacles of life than most of us."

With a fresh new round of donations, the shop is open again at Shanghai's Youth Activity Center. This time, founder Cao Xiaoxia aims for something more.

CAO XIAOXIA FOUNDER OF LOVE COFFEE "I think they should be educated. So we have launched a summer class upstairs where they can learn all kinds of school subjects."

The goal is to broaden their horizons with knowledge and social skills that will hopefully make them qualified employees. There are roughly 8 million autistic people over the age of 14 in China. Many more are unregistered. Helping them to become contributors to society has been a daunting challenge.

CAO XIAOXIA FOUNDER OF LOVE COFFEE "If we give them the right education when they are young, many of them can grow to be just like other kids by middle school. If we want to make them employable, we should start early."

Cao admits that this approach might not fit all autistic kids. But she said it's a start, helping these people one step at a time. At the end of the day, like the name of the place, it's all about love. Yang Chengxi, CGTN, Shanghai.