Grounds for success

The morning sun gilds the rice paddies of Henggang village as a white pony with the name tag "Mario "eagerly nudges a customer's cappuccino with its nose.

This is no pastoral daydream but rather, it's the carefully curated reality of Horse Coffee, a countryside startup in the village in Jiashan county, Jiaxing city, Zhejiang province, where the aroma of steaming espressos is blended with equine therapy.

Since it opened two years ago, the cafe has pulled in visitors from neighboring cities, including Shanghai, which is about an hour's drive away.

"We've never paid for advertisements, customers send their friends and colleagues our way through word-of-mouth," says Li Xuewen, founder of the cafe.

Weekends bring license plates and at peak times, her business serves more than 600 drinks to leisure-seekers in Henggang, the woman in her 30s says.

Born and raised in Jiashan, Li studied preschool education at college but began her career in the concrete jungle, where she spent seven years making viral content for brands.

"I was tired of burning myself out, working like cattle in a cubicle," she laughs.

Her escape route emerged unexpectedly during a 2022 visit to Henggang. The village immediately tugged at her heartstrings.

"The serene courtyards, well-developed infrastructure, and surrounding rice fields were exactly the pastoral landscape I had always imagined," she says.

Without blinking, she rented a single-story farmhouse.

"It felt closer to the essence of rural life I was originally looking for," she says.