Brew-haha is justified

[Photo by Sun Yuanqing/China Daily]

"They would sit on the seat and wait for someone to come. That was the first thing that we explain about our service," Delong says.

Then the real work begins: the education about coffee. Delong recalls that, in the early days, people would come in and casually ask for a Blue Mountain Coffee - an expensive variety grown in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. But cheaper fakes that are actually produced in South China's Yunnan province are commonplace in the country.

"They are accustomed to the name but they have never tasted the quality of it," Delong says.

"And people who really know what Blue Mountain Coffee is wouldn't buy it because it was too expensive."

What Delong offers is a traditional American-style coffee house menu that includes espresso-based beverages. It also offers hot and iced teas, hot chocolate and smoothies. All the ingredients and equipment are imported.

"Local coffee shops don't use imported equipment that costs tens of thousands of yuan, because locals don't recognize the quality of coffee anyway. But we decided to do it, because I won't give a customer something I don't cherish myself," Delong says.

"So it's also educating about quality. It's like walking with them hand-in-hand through the experience of teaching them what good coffee tastes like."

Delong's efforts have paid off. When he first started, nearly all customers needed to be educated. Some have themselves become educators.

One of the customers told him she once went to a local coffee shop and asked for a decaf, but the owner didn't know what that was.