Until 1960, under the one-party authoritarian regime of the Kuomintang led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan achieved steady economic growth. This was bolstered by U.S. aid, as Taiwan served as a critical Cold War outpost against the Soviet Union and communist China.

Around 1960, when Astoria Coffee in Taipei's bookstore district became famous as a gathering spot for the publishing industry and writers of the era, specialized coffee shops began opening in Taipei's Ximending area.
Prominent among these were Fonda Coffee (Fong Da Coffee) and Nanmei Coffee, both located on Chengdu Road.

A Streetside Bookstall Sparks a Literary Haven

The End of the Japanese Colonial Era

Coffee Culture in Taiwan During the Late Qing Dynasty

In the mid-1800s, during the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou were already thriving as trading ports and beginning to experience Western culture. This was due to their opening under the Treaty of Nanjing following the First Opium War (fought between Britain and the Qing Empire) in 1842.

In February 2017, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi remarked that the coffee produced by Hougu Coffee, a rapidly growing domestic brand, was the most delicious in the world. In that same year, Luckin Coffee, a domestic cafe chain destined to become a major rival to Starbucks, was founded by Lu Zhengyao and Qian Zhiya. These two were executives at CAR Inc. (Shenzhou Zuche), a major car rental chain that had experienced rapid growth since 2010.

Hougu Coffee: Launched by a Leading Coffee Producer in Yunnan Province

Hongtian Industrial, a major coffee production enterprise in Yunnan Province, supplied coffee beans to Nestlé and Maxwell House—which entered China in the late 1980s—as well as Starbucks, which entered in the 1990s. The company grew rapidly alongside the expansion of these businesses. Around 2004, the company began researching and developing processed coffee products.

The Jiang Zemin administration, which continued Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up policies, and Starbucks

Jiang Zemin became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square crackdown and served as China's paramount leader until the early 2000s. His era coincided with—and helped enable—the foundational period of China's modern coffee industry, both as a producer and as a consumer market.

The mainstream “coffee” image was still instant coffee

The mainstream “coffee” image was still instant coffee
For many Chinese urban consumers in the 1990s, coffee meant Nestlé instant coffee, not espresso, hand drip, or café latte.
A Chinese retrospective on Starbucks’ China entry says that when Starbucks opened in Beijing in 1999, many Chinese people’s understanding of coffee was still basically Nescafé instant coffee.

instant coffee was the first form of coffee to become truly mainstream

During China’s reform and opening-up era, instant coffee was the first form of coffee to become truly mainstream.

Before that, coffee existed in a few older urban settings such as Shanghai, but after 1978 it was reform-era consumer opening, foreign-brand entry, supermarket distribution, and mass advertising that turned coffee from a niche curiosity into a recognizable everydayproduct.