Want to open a coffee shop? Make sure the coffee quality is better than these 8 convenience stores!

More and more convenience stores have quietly started selling take-out coffee.

How do these takeaway coffees taste? How much do they cost? To be objective, I brought along a coffee lover who used to drink three cups of unsweetened Americano a day and had a heart racing all night long, and tried a few cups of "street coffee" for you over the weekend.

The first one is a 7-11 near Wangfujing shopping district. To show that this is not a "cloud review", here is a picture:

There weren't many people on Saturday morning. As soon as I opened the door, I saw the 7-11 slogan "The city is my coffee shop", which is true. Inside the oden window, there is another set of relatively new coffee equipment against the wall. The coffee beans for Americano and latte are placed in two coffee bean hoppers respectively. The operation is simple, the clerk only needs to press two buttons.

As for take-away coffee, 7-11 only has two kinds: Americano and latte. Both are available with iced coffee and hot drinks, and the cups are divided into large and small cups. A small cup of Americano costs 6 yuan, and a large cup costs 8 yuan. The latte with milk foam and sugar is two yuan more expensive than the Americano.

Compared to the prices of major coffee chains, this price is certainly attractive enough for some new white-collar workers who have not yet achieved financial freedom, if they drink one cup a day. Moreover, the main promotion of 7-11 is to offer the second cup at half price. This old dog-abuse routine still works for me.

Two small American coffees cost nine dollars. The staff provided stirring sticks, creamer and sugar, but you couldn't take them yourself.

As for the taste, it is just an ordinary American coffee. People who like sweet things will need 2 to 3 packets of sugar to drink it all. But I don’t know if it’s because the water temperature is not high enough, my friend and I agree that this cup of American coffee is not particularly fragrant.

In a 7-11 convenience store near the art museum, the enthusiastic clerk told me that they use Arabica coffee beans, and even adorably mistakenly said "Arabica". People who drink coffee regularly may be very familiar with this bean, which is a very important variety of commercial coffee beans, and is preferred for its mellow taste and less bitterness.

The clerk who was constantly restocking told me that the store sells at least 100 cups of coffee every day. I did a random "field survey": starting from 2:00 p.m., in less than half an hour, 5 people came out with coffee cups. Of course, this data sampling is not representative and cannot be compared with coffee shops, but it can also be seen that the take-away coffee here is quite popular.

"Take as much creamer and sugar as you need." As the clerk spoke to me, he was refilling the creamer that had been taken away.

The staff in this store are younger and may be more familiar with the operation of the coffee machine. The aftertaste of the American coffee this time was more fragrant, and it was still hot when I received it in my hand, which is the feeling you should have after receiving a cup of paper cup coffee in winter.

The most interesting thing is that in this 7-11, I found a white-haired elderly couple buying lattes. When asked, "Do you come to this convenience store often?", the elderly said that they just passed by here and were thirsty, so they came in to buy a cup of coffee. It seems that in the new consumption scenarios targeting young user groups, there are sometimes some unexpected gains.

Regarding the half-price offer for the second cup, a special tip is that if you happen to be buying alone and want to enjoy the half-price offer, the store clerk will usually kindly remind you: buy the second cup at half-price first, and they will give you a coupon, which you can redeem next time.

7-11 convenience store is a Japanese brand. In fact, since 2014, Japan's 7-11 has installed automatic coffee grinders in its stores across the country, and the name "7 Coffee" has not changed after entering China.

It is said that "there are FamilyMarts in the south and 7-11s in the north". There don't seem to be many FamilyMarts in Beijing, but the take-out coffee business is already well established - so take a look at FamilyMart Coffee.

Pai Ke Coffee is a coffee brand that FamilyMart quietly launched in June last year, and it was not until the internal test was completed that it began to be promoted at the beginning of this year. In a FamilyMart store that I finally found, I saw the price list of Pai Ke Coffee as expected.

FamilyMart has more coffee options: mocha, latte, cappuccino, Americano, and their own "ice coffee" that goes with ice cream. Regardless of the size, the price is 10-14 yuan. Smoothies cost 16 yuan. If you are middle-aged (wrong) and can stand it in the winter, you can try it.

FamilyMart’s Paike Coffee focuses on “Guatemalan Arabica coffee beans”. I don’t know if this is the reason why the price is a little higher. But for customers who rush to the convenience store to buy a cup of takeaway coffee, they may not care much whether the Arabica beans are from Guatemala or Banpo coffee from Panzhihua, Sichuan.

So, what about smaller Good Neighbor convenience stores? We walked into a Good Neighbor convenience store near a park.

The owner sits at the back counter, and the bell at the door jingles as customers come in and out. If asked if there is any coffee, the owner will point to the counter on the other side, where there are a row of drinks, dairy products and coffee drinks, which clearly indicates that there is no freshly ground coffee available.

This is a small Kuaike convenience store near the clock tower. There is only one lady boss in the store. Again, there is no freshly ground coffee as expected. The talkative lady boss said that she has never heard of freshly ground coffee, so there is no idea of ​​following up. However, there is a small capsule coffee machine on the counter (pictured above), regardless of the type, and each cup costs 8 yuan.

Another similar store is All Time Convenience Store.

I passed by an All-Time convenience store near dusk. When I first entered the store, I didn't find a coffee machine on the counter, but when I turned around, I saw a fully self-service cabinet coffee machine in the corner.

This machine, called "You Coffee", looks like an ATM (pictured below). The upper part is a scrolling advertising display screen, and the lower part is the water dispenser. The price list shows that in addition to milk and chocolate, this machine can provide 8 kinds of coffee. The purchase method is also very simple. Click the screen to select the type of coffee, scan the code to pay, open the door to get the drink, all in one go. There are two payment methods: WeChat and Alipay.

According to the store owner, not every store has such a coffee machine full-time. The machine has been here for more than half a year, and he is not very familiar with the varieties of beans. As for sales, although there are many people working nearby and it is close to a subway station, not that much coffee is sold.

Before the emergence of convenience store coffee, most of the coffee market share was naturally occupied by chain coffee brands. I have been to a chain coffee shop called "Coffee With You". In addition to the booths inside the store, it also has a take-out window. This is a price list (pictured above). The prices are okay, but still a little more expensive than convenience stores. Moreover, "Coffee With You" will still recommend customers to apply for a card. Of course, it is just a question, and it will not chatter like Director Tony in the hair salon.

Most bakeries now also have freshly ground coffee, which is not unusual, after all, most bakeries are originally Western pastry shops. If you walk on the streets of some Western countries, you will see people everywhere holding a baguette wrapped in a paper bag or freshly baked toast in one hand and drinking a cup of freshly ground hot coffee in the other hand. But in China, some chain bakeries have only been serving coffee in the past few years.

Weiduomei is the most common bakery on the street. There is a small Weiduomei next to the Quanshi, but unfortunately, it does not provide drinks. However, in another store two blocks away, I was surprised to see a brand new and fairly large coffee equipment. It was already night, and the advertising light box on the counter was brightly lit, showing that American coffee was 10 yuan and latte was 13 yuan.

The shop assistants were two girls of similar age. When they heard me say that other stores also had take-out coffee, one of them said that theirs were all instant coffee, while ours was freshly ground by hand. Oh, and now as long as you buy a cake, all drinks can be discounted by 30%. "Even if you only buy a wife cake, it's fine!" the other girl said mysteriously.

I also saw a coffee machine at a Holiland bakery in a shopping mall. I asked about it and found out that Holiland had already been addicted to coffee two or three years ago... But it was obvious that coffee was served as a beverage, because on the price list, in addition to several types of coffee, there were two types of milk tea, two types of cocoa and several cereal drinks. In addition to the Americano and latte commonly seen in convenience stores, there were also caramel macchiato and mocha.

In short, Holiland is "expensive" and its prices are more than twice as expensive as those in convenience stores.

In the same mall, a Hunan rice noodle shop also had a coffee machine on the counter at the door. The price list said: Coffee 8 yuan. At first I thought I saw some different fireworks...

However, the staff of the rice noodle shop told me that they had only introduced the machine for a week or two, and that his intention was not to sell coffee, but to sell two other beverages: soy milk and red dates and wolfberries. I asked him if many people bought coffee, and the person in charge smiled and said: Not many, not many people buy it, and people who come here to eat rice noodles drink soda and iced drinks.

I still bought a cup. As expected, it had a strong bottled Nestle flavor, and was like a cup of sweet and a little greasy hot cocoa. Moreover, the lady at the counter said enthusiastically: "Grab the straws over there." I hesitated for a moment when looking at those colorful plastic straws, but in the end I still had the weird-shaped cup of coffee in my hand as shown in the picture below.

Obviously, coffee and Hunan rice noodles are still naturally physiologically isolated. Of course, this does not prevent us from loving both.

After drinking so much coffee, I concluded that they are just as I imagined - low prices and ubiquitous stores, plus a huge consumer base, make convenience stores the most suitable place for take-out coffee. With such prices and fast service, people will not be so picky about the taste and details of coffee, but the location of the store, the surrounding environment, and the way of purchase will undoubtedly have different effects on the sale of coffee.

As a consumption scenario that urbanites are very familiar with, take-away coffee in convenience stores has not actually received much attention. For most people, it is just like adding a new flavor of instant noodles to the shelf or a new beer in the refrigerator, but everyone has begun to enjoy this convenience without realizing it.

Hmm, is there a convenience store selling coffee on the next corner? Let's go check it out.

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