A matter of good taste

During the trip, Baden, who was then the head of a German chemical company, met Zhu Hewen, the co-founder of the school, and was taken on a tour of the coffee farms in the mountains.

The experience left such a deep impression on Baden that he decided to open the business along with Zhu in Shanghai in 2018.

"He took me to a small village of coffee farmers located way up in the mountains. That was the first time I saw for myself the harsh conditions these farmers had to endure," recalls Baden.

During the trip, Baden discovered that the prices of coffee cherries had been sliding to the point that many of the small-scale farmers were making a loss from growing coffee. What exacerbated the situation was the need to sell their coffee cherries to intermediaries, which meant further losses.

"We later realized that we both wanted to help people like the coffee farmers improve their lives. That's when we decided to set up Coffee Commune," he says.

Leveraging his rich experience in corporate management, Baden took charge of building an organizational structure and establishing a sustainable business, while Zhu taught the farmers how to produce high-quality beans.