The abundance of cafés in Shanghai contributes to the city's relaxed, cosmopolitan atmosphere. While you're never too far from a Starbucks or a Costa, an increasing number of independent coffee shops have been springing up around town, roasting their own beans in carefully selected batches and helping to cultivate a growing interest in quality coffee.
From the freshest roast to the perfect brew, these three coffee boutiques offer attention to detail and flavors that the big chains cannot provide. The expat owners are so serious about their beans and brewing technique that a simple black coffee delivers more than one expects.
Coffee boutiques in Shanghai offer flavors that the big chains cannot provide. Photos: Cai Xianmin/GT
Rumors Coffee
Rumors Coffee is a tidy little café tucked away on quiet Hunan Road, near the Shanghai Library. The place is so tiny that one could easily walk past without noticing it, if not for the aroma of coffee wafting from inside.
There are four stools at the bar, three chairs by the wall, and a room for four people to sit in a little nook facing the street. The small space not only creates an intimate ambience, but also makes it possible for customers to witness the care with which the owners brew handcrafted and exquisite drip coffee.
Keiichi Nakayama, 40, opened the shop together with his Shanghainese wife in February 2011. Formerly engaged in the trading business, he conceived the idea of opening his own coffee shop after a serendipitous encounter when he and his wife came across a small coffee shop run by an old couple in Tokyo.
Nakayama then spent three years learning roasting and brewing skills from his Japanese teacher and named his little café Rumors Coffee as a tribute to his teacher's shop, Kawang Rumor, which means "a friend's home" in Indonesian. He hopes that his small café can be regarded as a shared living room for friends to chat and relax.
The Japanese owner hand picks and brings over fresh beans imported originally to Japan, and roasts them here. Then the beans are ground and brewed in the shop. He and his wife are dedicated maintaining control over every step of the process, so as to ensure every cup of coffee is perfect.
All the beans that are kept for over two weeks are thrown away as they pass the best time for tasting. They are also more than willing to explain the different beans and love to give customers a whiff of the beans to help with their choice.
"The roasting is a process of bringing out the characteristic flavor of different beans. Though the roasting and brewing time and temperature differs greatly for different beans, the criteria for a good cup of coffee is very simple, that is, it must be a cup that makes you comfortable," Nakayama told the Global Times.
"A good cup of coffee should be one that makes you stop to think. It touches your heart when you are sipping it," he said. "I hope that in my shop customers can have heart-to-heart communication through coffee drinking."
Address: 9 Hunan Road 湖南路9号
Opening Hours: 11 am to 7:30 pm (Tuesday to Thursday), 11 am to 9:30 pm (Friday to Sunday)
Coffee boutiques in Shanghai offer flavors that the big chains cannot provide. Photos: Cai Xianmin/GT
Sumerian Specialty Coffee
David Seminsky, a former employee of a large American consumer electronics company, opened Sumerian in April 2012. Patrons can be divided into two categories: those who grew up outside China and are really into coffee, and those who simply like the ambience of the brightly lit, cozy space.
Seminsky opened the coffee shop because he saw a gap in the market. "Coffee is now making an entrance in China. It is great that coffee chains make drinking coffee a lifestyle, but pure coffee is not introduced here," he told the Global Times.
In his opinion, the perfect coffee experience is personal and unique instead of being standardized like it is in a chain. "Every different bean has different flavors when they are roasted differently. They only come out the same when they are burnt, like overcooked beef," he explained. "The longer you roast it, the less natural flavor it contains."
He and his colleague Adam Mclean spend a lot of time and effort testing what roasting time and temperature will bring out what kind of flavors and properties of each kind of bean. They take out small samples of the beans once in a while and establish a chart or flavor profile for it.
For Seminsky and Mclean, a cup of coffee is best when everything is balanced. Scientific brewing process is important, but the more important thing for Seminsky is to follow one's intuition. "For roasters, they have to understand the coffee so as to bring out the best taste," he noted.
Address: 415 Shaanxi Road North 陕西北路415号
Opening hours: 9 am to 6 pm
Coffee beans are carefully ground.
Café del Volcán
Café del Volcán is a small coffee boutique located on Yongkang Road where one can sip coffee brewed from freshly roasted beans, smell and taste the difference, and take home some of the beans after one learns how to make the most flavorful cup themselves.
Opened by a German coffee aficionado, Café del Volcán's signature coffee is the Guatemalan Santa Rosa. They also sell Ethiopian Sidamo, Sumatran Mandheling and Yunnan Baoshan coffees.
Address: 80 Yongkang Road 永康路80号
Opening Hours: 8 am to 8 pm (weekdays), 10 am to 6 pm (weekends)