Party Secretary of Yanbian Prefecture in Jilin Province Meets with Influential Coffee Companies to Discuss Brightening the Golden Brand of “County Coffee King”

On December 2, a symposium for popular coffee enterprises was held in Yanbian Prefecture, Jilin Province. Hu Jiafu, member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee and Secretary of the Zhou Party Committee, attended the event. 19 heads from coffee, catering, and vocational training institutions were invited to participate.

The symposium, which focused on discussing ways to promote the upgrading of the coffee industry and accelerate the development of Yanbian’s cultural tourism market, invited leaders from popular coffee enterprises to gather and share their insights. According to the “Yanbian Release” WeChat official account, the event was reported by the “Yanbian Daily”.

Hu Jiafu expressed gratitude to the coffee enterprises for their contributions to promoting the prosperity of Yanbian’s cultural tourism market, on behalf of the Yanbian Provincial Party Committee and government. He encouraged everyone to seize the favorable opportunity of the current rising popularity of Yanbian’s cultural tourism market, enrich product offerings, enhance consumer experiences, tell good coffee stories, and jointly promote the scale, specialization, and branding of the Yiji coffee industry. He also emphasized that it is important to make coming to Yanbian and enjoying a cup of coffee a new trend in cultural tourism consumption.

The atmosphere at the symposium was lively and active. 19 enterprise heads from various companies such as Han Coffee, Laodingben Coffee, Yanchuan Snow Ice Coffee, Shiting Coffee, Houlang Coffee, Xinluoyu Coffee, English Time Coffee, Little Planet Coffee, Kubo Coffee, Quan Chao Coffee, Hagen Coffee, Le Ye Coffee, Yanqing Coffee, Milo Home Coffee, Yiwu San Coffee Co., Ltd., Yanbian Yanfu Qingtan Catering Management Co., Ltd., Yanbian Enxi Coffee Management Co., Ltd., and Yijia Cultivate Vocational Training School as well as Longjing Tianhua Li Coffee spoke freely about their current business status, challenges in development, and future plans. They also shared their ideas and expectations on areas such as supporting enterprise policies, personnel training, and financial services. Officials from Yiji City, Longjing City, and relevant departments also interacted with the enterprise heads on supporting enterprise development and promoting the integration of “coffee tourism.”

Hu Jiafu pointed out that it is important to persist in creativity, innovation, and creation in production management, coffee product development, marketing promotion, etc. He emphasized that the “county coffee king” brand should be made more prominent and attract more attention to further enhance the popularity and influence of Yanbian’s cultural tourism. Hu also emphasized the need to focus on product development, explore innovation in taste, pairing, packaging, and drinking methods, strengthen local product development in line with the diversified consumer demand and personalized consumption psychology, and launch more diverse coffee products with rich flavors that are compatible with various drinking habits and contain the local characteristics of Yanbian. It is also necessary to carefully create new consumption scenes that combine business themes and consumer characteristics, create “coffee + book atmosphere,” “coffee + e-sports,” “coffee + performing arts,” “coffee + folklore,” etc., through creating specific scenes and atmospheres and providing a comfortable environment and services to create immersive consumer experiences. It is also necessary to accurately focus on marketing efforts, learn from the operating models and marketing methods of well-known enterprises in the industry, explore the opening of 24-hour stores, brand image stores, city flagship stores, etc., adopt online and offline “global retail”, rely on social media platforms to carry out real-time interaction and live sales. Through collaboration with other industry brands and famous IPs, a series of joint coffee products and peripheral products should be launched. Discount promotion activities should be carried out in combination with specific nodes to continuously stimulate consumers’ freshness and purchasing desires and promote steady growth in business profitability.

Hu Jiafu’s reference to the “county coffee king” refers to Yiji City, the capital of Yanbian Prefecture. According to data provided by the Yiji Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department, there are more than 800 coffee shops in this county-level city with a permanent population of 690,000. The number of coffee shops per 10,000 people is nearly four times that of Shanghai’s “Coffee Capital” status, earning it the nickname “County Coffee King” among China’s 394 county-level cities.

Yanbian is located on the border of China, Russia, and Korea. As the capital city of Yanbian Prefecture, Yiji was one of the first cities in Northeast Asia to be exposed to neighboring countries’ coffee culture at the beginning of reform and opening up. An interview with Cui Fenghua会长of the Yanbian State Coffee Culture Exchange Development Association quoted by People’s Daily recalled that even in the 1980s and 1990s when many Koreans enjoyed coffee as a trend brought back by Korean immigrants from Yanbian who had taken advantage of their language skills to work in Korea as a result of deepening reforms and opening up. The trend led to the opening of many cafes in Yanbian during its “teahouse era.” It was around 2008 that entrepreneurs who had worked in Korea returned home from overseas entrepreneurship引进韩国连锁品牌咖啡店。店内环境优雅舒适，选用现磨咖啡豆，让更多延吉人逐步了解咖啡文化，并培养了对咖啡的喜爱。近四十年的发展之后，喝咖啡已经成为了大部分延吉人的日常生活习惯。 Around this time算是正式掀起了延吉的咖啡文化热。 At present延边州政府也正立足延吉咖啡产业的良好发展势头在吸引咖啡全产业链上下游企业进驻延伸咖啡产业链条培育打造咖啡消费新业态推动咖旅深度融合发展上做出诸多努力咖啡产业的成长壮大也正在为当地的文旅产业带来全新增长机遇 It can be inferred from this report that efforts are being made by government officials in promoting both industry growth while incorporating coffee culture into everyday life throughout Yanbian through various means including collaborations with local businesses entrepreneurs academic institutions以及其他社会团体努力在市场营销产品创新和消费场景打造等方面推陈出新以此促进咖啡产业进一步发展同时也通过挖掘和推广咖啡文化带动了当地旅游产业的繁荣提升了延吉在全国乃至世界范围内的知名度和影响力 These efforts demonstrate a commitment towards enhancing cultural exchange promoting tourism development as well as boosting economic growth within the region.。